Square Foot Garden Layout | Essential Homestead

Square Foot Garden Layout

I’ve been organizing my seed collection, looking over seed catalogs and planning my spring garden layout.  Last year, my husband and I decided to go with raised beds.   For years, we would disc, till, fertilize and plant a row garden.  Then we decided to fence in the garden area for cattle.  I was tired of row gardening anyhow.  Frankly, I didn’t have a garden plan for about a year.  I just knew I needed that area for cows.  I realized that I missed gardening, as hard as it was, but I didn’t miss the back-breaking work of row gardening.  I started small with one raised bed and I really enjoyed it.  So, my husband helped me expand and make a plan to go larger over the next few years.  He put a fence around it with a gate.  I just love my garden now.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time on my garden layout and researching companion planting.  I’m adding several perennial plants and herbs this year.  I decided to try square foot gardening to get the most out of my raised beds.  The square foot garden planner is a quick and easy way to layout your garden.   No guess-work about how many plants per square foot to plant or when to harvest and replant.  The number of plants per square foot depends on the plant size.

I purchased a vinyl grid to use as an example.  I’m also going to give this nylon netting a try. It’s recommended to plant climbing plants in a northern row so as not to shade the other plants with the netting.
Here’s an example of my preliminary garden layout.

Do you layout your garden each year?  Feel free to share your ideas and plans.
Happy Gardening!  Let’s have a great growing season!

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