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It was said in the name of Rebbe Yochanan, that the passuk that teaches us that the Rabonnon can be relied on to determine the fine points of horticulture is, לא תסיג גבול רעך אשר גבלו ראשונים – Do not move the boundary of your neighbor which the early ones marked out. The passuk is coming to teach that one should not encroach on the boundary that the early ones established for planting. Rashi explains that planting too close to the boundary will weaken the neighbor’s field.
It was said in the name of Rebbe Yonasan that the “early ones” are those mentioned in the passuk, אלה בני שעיר החרי ישבי הארץ – These are the sons of Seir, the Chori, inhabitants of the land.
Rav Assi said that the six by six dimensions of garden patch mentioned in the Mishna, was referring to the internal area of the patch, excluding its borders, which were used for walkways.
If the borders, which were typically a tefach wide, were included in the dimensions, that would only leave an area of four by four tefachim wide, and therefore there would only be two tefachim between the center seed and the seeds along the sides. There needs to be at least a distance of three tefachim between seeds, to not violate the prohibition of kilayim.
There is a machlokes Amoraim regarding where the Mishnah’s vegetable patch was planted:
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