Square-Foot Gardening: Plants per Square Chart

Square-foot gardening turns a bed into a simple grid: divide the surface into one-foot squares and give each square its own crop, planted at exactly the density its spacing allows. No rows, no wasted paths, and a four-by-four bed yields a surprising amount of food.

Set up the grid

Mark a one-foot grid across the bed with string, thin battens, or paint. A 4×4-foot bed gives you sixteen squares, and keeping any bed within four feet of reach means you never step on the soil. The grid does the work for you. Every planting decision shrinks to one square at a time, so spacing stops being something you have to think about.

How many plants per square

Convert the spacing on the seed packet into plants per square: 12-inch spacing means 1 per square, 6-inch means 4, 4-inch means 9, and 3-inch means 16.

One per square: tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, eggplant. Four per square: lettuce, basil, strawberries, chard. Nine per square: spinach, beets, bush beans, turnips. Sixteen per square: carrots, radishes, scallions. Every crop page lists the spacing behind these numbers.

Climbers and sprawlers

Grow vining crops up a trellis on the north side of the bed so they do not shade the rest: cucumbers and pole beans fit two per square on a trellis. Give true sprawlers like zucchini or winter squash a block of two squares, or route them over the edge of the bed.

Soil and depth

The classic recipe is equal parts compost, peat (or coir), and vermiculite, but an even blend of good topsoil and compost works just as well and costs less. Six inches of depth is enough for greens; give root crops ten to twelve. For building and filling the bed itself, see the raised bed guide.

Replant square by square

When a square finishes, stir in a scoop of compost and replant it the same day. The grid makes succession planting almost automatic, because each square is its own tiny bed on its own schedule. Dibble's bed planner lays out the grid for you: drag a crop into a square and it applies the same spacing data, and flags what can still be sown this month in your zone.