How many vegetables per square foot

Most people focus solely on what hardiness zone they are in. Zones are based on the average annual minimum winter temperature and the map is divided into a different zone for every 10 degrees Fahrenheit difference. Zones are important when choosing plants from a nursery or seed catalog. Again, all you need to do is enter your zip code to find out these dates.

These are average dates based on historical data, and you will want to be prepared with protective covers for your garden in case of a surprise cold snap. This is sometimes a range of time indicated by the basket in the chart. You could be growing a lot more, without any extra effort. Do not worry though, ambitious gardener.

Already understand plant spacing and just want to reference our spacing chart? Scroll to the bottom of this page. Need a planting spacing grid? When you grow a garden in a raised garden bed, the purpose of the bed is to condense your growing area to a point that you can reach all plants, without having to step into the growing area.

Planting by area means taking a square section of garden, and dividing the length and width of that section by the plant spacing needs. Now, we normally do not condone being wasteful, but we want you to take that row spacing number, and throw it away!

Adding a good amount of new compost each season will allow fresh nutrients to be added and can help keep most diseases at bay. Below is an outline for a sample 3 raised bed system, featuring three beds that are 4 ft x 8 ft.

All three beds will give you 96 square feet of growing space, enough for a family of 6 to have a fresh, seasonal eating garden or a family of to have veggies for fresh seasonal eating and some left for preserving. I have placed these beds altogether just to fit them on the same page, but in real life you are going to want to position them so you have at least 2 feet clear all around the bed for you to access and tend the bed. The tall plants are kept to one side of the bed.

Be sure to position the beds so the tall plants are on the northern side so they do not shade shorter plants. Check out my plan for an inexpensive trellis system that works well with square foot gardening. Below is also an example of how you could keep a garden journal. Once you have made your template, photocopy a bunch of them. Write the year at the top, fill in the boxes, pop it in a binder.

Super easy! Make notes about how well or poor it grew, and how it tasted. The internet is such an awesome resource - blogs, videos, professional resources, all at your…. What a fantastic post! Your gardens look lovely — quite the change from ! Thank you! I had a modge podge garden of companion planted things but not enough of anything and not close enough together to help each other.

My hope is to prove him wrong this year and I feel like this article has given me hope! Please continue to share your garden, I am following along and paying attention! Good luck with your garden this year, let me know how it goes! Just wondering! I tried a raised bed garden last year and made multiple mistakes. I will be moving my frames to a sunnier spot in my side field and actually marking the sections and plant more mindful this time. Yes, rows will be the tallest so they should face north end.

So leave space between beds, especially if the beds are laid out north to south. I love this post! Thank you. Any tips? You can trellis peas on bamboo stakes made into a teepee. String twine in between the poles to form a netting for the peas to grow up. Alternately, you could set aside a few squares in a row and use a traditional lattice or chicken wire trellis down the middle of the boxes, growing 4 vines on each side of the trellis in each box.

With that method you would just want to be sure the sun is hitting the box right so both sides of the trellis get sun. One more way to do it would be to again grow a few boxes in a row, then put a stake in the ground at either end and string twine at several points between the two posts for growing wires. Do this through the middle of the boxes and grow 4 vines on each side per box.

The same methods would go for cucumbers or pole beans, you can even have them growing on the same trellis. Hope this helps! Thank you for such a wonderful beginners guide. Question, seems inly veg, herbs and flowers are grown this way. I realize a lot of fruit requires quite a bit of space , bit could square foot gardening be used for some types?

If so, what would you recommend? You are right, many fruits would require more space as they grow on large bushes or trees. You could certainly include strawberries in a square foot garden.

If you combined a couple squares and trellis the vines above, grapes could also be grown. You could plant some more shade tolerant herbs or lettuce in the boxes below the vine as they would be partially shaded.

Certainly if there is a will there is a way! Good luck! Thanks for this great post! Does that mean that should be the north side of the bed? Not a silly question! For example, in my garden, I have a 6 foot privacy fence on the north length of my garden and the south length is open and clear of trees. Since the majority of the sun comes from the south side, I would say my garden is generally south facing. I found this article very helpful however I have several questions. One more question. Thank you in advance.

Welcome to gardening! Everyone has to start somewhere! When you should start a garden depends a lot on where you live and how long your growing season is. On the flip side, my growing season typically ends in September so I need to make sure whatever I plant will be ready to harvest by then. So something like tomatoes would never have enough time to grow from seed if I planted them outside now. That being said, seeds can be tricky and for a beginner gardener you might have better results starting with transplants for most things.

With plants like corn I like to stagger my seeding — so do 10 one week, then 10 more the next week and so on, so that I have a little corn ready each week during harvest time.

I live in Ohio. All I can find is how to do it with seeds. Would it be the same I would just replace seeds for the plants? Exactly — just think of each seed as one plant. Salad greens are really easy to grow from seed and you could definitely still start them now. I really appreciate your post, and find it very helpful and encourageing, and I need encouragement because this is new for me! Love this article! Couple questions — I see in one of your pictures a chicken — how do you keep your chickens from eating all the produce?

I have chickens that free range in my back yard so I was planning a front yard garden. And finally, any way to get your list for all 9 boxes? Hi Wendy! My garden is enclosed by a picket fence to keep the chickens out during the growing season.

I do let them in during the off season, they are great helpers for turning the soil, eating bugs and leaving behind compost. So if you want to keep your garden in the back you could put up a simple chicken wire fence.

At about 4 feet high, they would have to be super determined to get in. That said, I think vegetable gardens can be every bit as beautiful as flower gardens! You can get or make some decorative trellis and supports for the tall plants like peas, cucumbers, pole beans, tomatoes, etc. Most herbs have lovely greenery with different textures, and they tend to be low growing so they would be great border plants. I think square foot gardening in particular can be really beautiful because the garden is so full and has lots of variety.

I like to try different varieties each year, but some of my favorites that I always get are San Marzano tomatoes paste tomato , Jelly Bean tomatoes cherry tomatoes , Sugar Snap peas, Miss Picker cucumbers, Yellow Ebenezer onion sets, and Gotta Have It sweet corn.

I just visited their website and looks like a terrific place to get seeds and plants. My wife and I are considering moving to Delaware and as soon as we get there setting up a garden is my first priority. Here is another basic question. How much mulch, vermiculite, and peat moss do I need to buy for a 4 x 4 box? If I need to fill it to the top of the box, I would have to buy probably quite a bit of these materials.

If you are buying 40 pound bags that is about 14 bags. Far more economical is to contact a landscape company about delivering compost by the truck full. Many companies will have a minimum delivery though so you may have to buy multiple yards of soil unless you have access to a pickup truck and can pick it up yourself. I fell on your post because I heard that you can plant 64 corn in a sqft garden. This is my first year trying this method.