Get a Bigger Harvest With This Plant Spacing Guide for Raised Bed Gardens (2024)

FAQs

What is the spacing for raised garden plants? ›

These are the basic, most frequently used spacing's in the square foot garden: The 3-inch spacing accommodates beets, carrots, onions and radishes. The 4-inch spacing is for bush beans and spinach. A 6-inch spacing is needed for Swiss chard, leaf lettuce and parsley.

Raised beds help maximize garden space because you don't have to use space for walkways. Planting in squares or rows may look neat, but it uses space less effectively. Instead, arrange your plants in triangles. By doing so, you'll be able to fit more plants into the same space.

For a square bed, multiply the length of the bed by its width to determine how many plants per square foot. For a circular planting bed, you can calculate how many plants per square foot is ideal by multiplying 3.14 by the distance from the center to the edge of the bed.

You can typically grow 6 to 12 small plants like lettuce and carrots per square foot. You can grow 4 to 6 medium plants like basil or zinnias per square foot. Each large fruiting plant like a cherry tomato will cost you 1.5 square feet.

A general recommendation is to place tomato plants about 18-24 inches apart, but plant spacing actually depends a lot on the type of tomato variety you're planting. Research the variety or follow spacing guidelines on the seed packet or plant tag.

You can grow many fruiting or root producing vegetables specifically for their greens and sow the seeds much closer together than you would otherwise. By coming up with new ideas to use your crops, you can dramatically increase your productivity per bed.

They should have at least 8 inches of soil depth to accommodate the root systems of plants, because the majority of plant roots require 6 – 8 inches of soil for healthy root growth. A depth of 8 – 12 inches will suffice for most gardening situations.

To grow most “above ground” crops like lettuce, broccoli and peppers, six inches is deep enough. Root vegetables like beets, carrots and potatoes require at least eight inches. Tomatoes grow best with 12 inches or more of soil, particularly for indeterminate varieties.

I've seen suggestions online to add plastic bottles or trash bags as filler to the bottom of raised beds to save money on soil. This not only defeats the purpose of installing a raised bed in order to give your plants' roots all the growing room they need, it also can negatively impact the drainage of your raised beds.

Using square foot gardening, you can comfortably grow two cucumber plants per square foot.

What is the minimum space between raised garden beds? ›

The minimum width I usually recommend for raised beds is two feet. Two feet gives you room to grow several staggered rows of small, medium, and large plants. If you can only tend from one side, I'd recommend staying under two and a half feet, which is probably about as far as your arm can reach.

Another method commonly used in raised beds and backyard vegetable gardens is the square foot gardening method. In this method, the gardener lays out a grid in the garden with each square in the grid measuring one square foot. Therefore, in a 3x6 foot garden, you would be able to fit 18 plants.

As a general rule, put tall veggies toward the back of the bed, mid-sized ones in the middle, and smaller plants in the front or as a border. Consider adding pollinator plants to attract beneficial insects that can not only help you get a better harvest, but will also prey on garden pests.