Guides & examples
Learn to plan a bed
Short, practical pages that support the tools: what to prepare, how to read a result, and how to take a plan into the garden.
Before you plan
- Starting a vegetable gardenWhat to decide and measure before you open the planner.
- Square-foot and row spacingWhether blocks or rows suit your bed, and why the two sets of distances differ.
- Vegetable spacing referenceThe spacing behind each of the 18 presets, its source, and how many fit a typical bed.
While you plan
- Worked planning examplesFour illustrative plans with inputs, method, result and what to change, each openable in the tools.
- Reading a bed planWhat placed, unmet, unallocated and vacant mean, and why crop order matters.
- How the calculations workThe formulas, the layout rules, the sources and every assumption the tools make.
Reference charts
- How many plants fit in a 4 × 8 bedCounts for 18 crops, measured inside and outside, in blocks and rows, with two mixed beds.
- Raised bed sizes comparedSix common sizes by plant capacity and soil volume, with guidance on width, depth and paths.
- Raised bed soil chartVolume and whole bags for six bed sizes at five depths.
- 4 × 4 raised bed layoutsThree worked plans for the most popular starter bed.