What you need
- The printed plan sheet, or the plan link open on your phone.
- A tape measure long enough for the bed’s length.
- String or twine and a few short stakes or pegs, to mark strip boundaries.
- A straight stick or batten you can mark with the spacing distances, so you do not measure every plant separately.
Mark out before you sow or plant, while the surface is level and bare. Measurements are easier to repeat on a raked surface than among existing plants.
Find the reference corner
Every distance on the plan sheet is measured from the back-left inside corner of the bed. The back is the top edge of the drawing, which is also where a trellis crop goes; it is not a compass direction. Decide which real edge that is before you start, and mark it.
Check that the bed is the size you entered and roughly square. In a true rectangle both diagonals are equal. For an 8 × 4 ft bed each diagonal is √(96² + 48²) = 107.33 in, about 8 ft 11.3 in. If the diagonals differ by more than a small amount, measure the usable rectangle inside the frame and re-run the plan with that size.
Mark the strips
The marking-out table lists each crop’s strip as distances from the back edge. Measure each boundary at both ends of the bed and stretch a string between the two marks. Here is the table from the salad and roots example:
| Crop | Strip from back edge | Rows × places | First plant centre | Then every |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Head lettuce | 0 in – 12 in | 1 × 8 | 6 in from left6 in from back | 12 in along the row |
| Bulb onion | 12 in – 24 in | 2 × 16last row 8 of 16 used | 3 in from left15 in from back | 6 in along the rowrows 6 in apart |
| Carrot | 24 in – 30 in | 2 × 32last row 16 of 32 used | 1.5 in from left25.5 in from back | 3 in along the rowrows 3 in apart |
| Beet | 30 in – 36 in | 1 × 16 | 3 in from left33 in from back | 6 in along the row |
The strings for this bed go at 12, 24, 30 and 36 in from the back edge. Everything in front of the last string is the unallocated 12 in strip.
Place the plants
Within each strip, measure the first plant centre from the left end and from the back edge, then step along the row by the “then every” distance. For the carrots above, the first centre is 1.5 in from the left end and 25.5 in from the back edge, and the next is 3 in further along. A stick marked every 3 in lets you set out a whole row without re-measuring.
When a strip has more than one row, the next row starts the same distance from the left end, one row distance further from the back. The last row may be only partly used: the table shows how many of its places are needed, starting from the left.
For direct-sown crops such as carrots, the positions are final plants after thinning. Sow along the row as the packet directs, then thin to the marked distance.
Use the coordinates
The CSV download lists every plant as X (inches from the left end) and Y (inches from the back edge). The first carrot in the example is at X = 1.5, Y = 25.5. Coordinates are useful for large or dense plans, for checking a few plants after marking, or for importing into another drawing program. They are always in inches, whatever units you used in the planner.
When the ground does not match the plan
Frames bow, corners are rarely perfect, and a post or pipe may take space. When a strip will not fit where the plan says, re-measure the usable area, enter the smaller size and print a new plan rather than moving plants closer together. If only one edge is affected, you can also make the bed shorter or narrower in the planner and see what that costs in plants before you decide.