DibbleSquare-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. In the squares that take nine or sixteen seeds, a dibber makes quick work of the holes and keeps them all at the same depth.
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 gives you the one-foot grid: drag a crop into a square and it warns you when two neighbors do not get along. The plants-per-square numbers above are the ones to follow.
