square-foot-gardening

Vegetable Garden Spacing Chart: Plant Spacing Calculator and Yield Guide

Vegetable Garden Spacing Chart: Plant Spacing Calculator and Yield Guide Vegetable garden spacing follows a simple density formula: divide the square footage of your bed by the spacing area each plant needs (in square feet) to get total plants per bed. A 4x8 raised bed (32 sq ft) fits 8 tomatoes at 24-inch spacing, 32 peppers at 12-inch spacing, or 128 carrots at 3-inch spacing. Getting this number wrong is the fastest way to lose an entire season to disease and poor yields. I have tracked plant counts, spacing, and harvest weights across 14 raised beds over four growing seasons in Zone 6b. In my worst experiment, I crammed 20 basil plants into a 4x4 bed (16 sq ft) at 4-inch spacing where 9 plants at 6-inch spacing was correct. Every single plant developed downy mildew by July. In my best season, 8 properly spaced indeterminate tomatoes in a 4x8...