Q.planting in a hill vs a row
I am a novice at vegetable gardening! I have multiple raised beds. Tried the Square Foot Method and had a lot of bugs and disease, which I am attributing to plants just spaced too closely together. (I think.) Now trying to figure out proper plant spacing for good air circulation to help prevent some of this. What the heck does ‘planting in a hill’ mean? I see different spacing listed for planting in a hill vs rows and don’t get it.
Some vegetables, such as squash, melons, cucumbers, and corn, can be planted on small hills that you would build out of soil in your garden. This has some of the same advantages that raised beds provide, but since you already have raised beds you don't need to plant on hills, and you can just use the row spacings.
If you are in a humid climate, some of the closer spacings you see listed might lead to high humidity and more disease problems, so it's best to look for local advice (like from the website of a local university extension service) and to use varieties that are known to do well in your climate. For example:
https://extension.tennessee.edu/publications/Documents/SP291-N.pdf
