

This category includes parsley, basil, and even the larger heads of leaf lettuce and Swiss chard.
#Square foot garden planner full
Several crops could be one per square foot if you let them grow to their full sizes, or they can be planted four per square foot if you harvest the outer leaves throughout the season. Large plants include leaf lettuce, dwarf marigolds, Swiss chard and parsley. Next are the large plants - those that can be planted four to a square foot, which equals 6 inches apart. The extra large, of course, are those that take up the entire square foot - plants like cabbages, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower and geraniums. Shirts come in all four sizes: small, medium, large and extra large, and so do our plants. Think of your plants as if they were shirt sizes. (Yet that’s a 3-inch spacing between plants, which is exactly the same spacing the seed packet recommends as it says “thin to 3 inches apart.”) Consider Plant Size It’s the same for onions and carrots - 16 per square foot. Sixteen can fit into a single square foot. Let’s go to the opposite end of the spectrum and think of the small plants like radishes. It’s the same with broccoli and cauliflower. That single cabbage will take up a whole square foot so you can only plant one per square foot. Picture a large plant like a head of cabbage. This simple step prevents you from planting too much. In square-foot gardening, begin by visualizing what you want to harvest. The following is adapted from Chapter 6, “How to Plant Your All New Square-Foot Garden.”
#Square foot garden planner how to
Learn about how to plant your square-food garden in this excerpt from All-New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew (Cool Springs Press, 2005). Even if you have a large garden, utilizing this planting technique will help increase your garden’s yield per square foot. Square-foot gardening has become a method embraced by small-space gardeners. An added bonus? With the informed garden planning and intensive planting techniques used in this method, your garden will save you time, money and labor.

The key is understanding plant spacing and planting in grids to maximize the amount of crops that can be grown in a single square foot. In “The All New Square-Foot Gardening,” gardening author Mel Bartholomew outlines a plan for every gardener to grow more food in less space.
