Garden Planning

A plan is only as good as whether the crops actually fit in it. These guides do the subtraction out loud — real row spacing, real plant sizes, and what has to move to a second bed. The plant spacing calculator does the arithmetic for you, and the companion planting chart covers what goes beside what.

A vegetable plot at sunset, seen down its length. Long rows of lettuce, cabbage and squash run away toward a low banded sun, with staked tomatoes standing along both sides. Wide strips of bare reddish soil separate every row, and a tape measure lies unrolled across one of them.

Garden planning

Vegetable Garden Layout: What Goes Where, With Real Spacing Math

The number that decides a layout is the gap between rows, not between plants. Cucumbers want 48 to 72 inches between rows. A 4×8 bed is 48 inches wide.

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