Square Foot Garden Planner
A square foot garden planner with the plants-per-square count for every crop, a grid you tap to plant, and planting dates for your ZIP code.
Plan by the square foot
- 01Every bed is a grid of 1 × 1 ft squares. Start from a 4 × 4 or 4 × 8 bed.
- 02Choose a crop and tap the squares it should take. The planner counts the plants per square for you.
- 03Large crops like squash take several squares for one plant; the count shows once one has enough room.
- 04Add your ZIP code for the planting calendar, and plan successions (Pro) for a steady harvest.
Plants per square
Square-foot gardening divides a bed into one-foot squares and plants each square at an even spacing, 1, 4, 9 or 16 plants depending on the crop's size [1].
| Per square | Crops |
|---|---|
| 16 | carrot, green onion, radish, salad mix (baby greens) |
| 9 | beet, bush bean, cilantro, cowpea (southern pea), edamame, lima bean, mustard greens, onion (bulb), parsnip, spinach, turnip |
| 8 | pea (shelling/snap/snow), pole bean |
| 4 | arugula, basil, bok choy, broccoli raab, chamomile (german), chives, fava bean, garlic, kohlrabi, leaf lettuce, leek, rutabaga, shallot, swiss chard |
| 2 | cucumber |
| 1 | bell pepper, borage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, calendula, cauliflower, celeriac, celery, cherry tomato, collards, dill, eggplant, fennel (florence), head lettuce, hot pepper, kale, marigold, mint, napa cabbage, nasturtium, okra, oregano, parsley, potato, romaine lettuce, rosemary, strawberry, sweet corn, thyme, tomato, zinnia |
| 1 per 2 squares | cosmos, sage, sunflower, sweet potato, winter squash |
| 1 per 4 squares | cantaloupe, ground cherry, summer squash (zucchini/yellow), tomatillo, watermelon |
| 1 per 9 squares | pumpkin |
Questions
How many plants go in a square foot?
1 for large plants (tomato, pepper, broccoli, cabbage), 4 for medium ones (lettuce, chard, parsley), 9 for small ones (bush beans, spinach, beets) and 16 for the smallest (carrots, radishes). Squash and melons need several squares each. The table above has every crop in the library.
Do I need to follow the counts exactly?
No. They're a starting point for loose, rich raised-bed soil. Give plants more room in poorer soil or very humid summers, which helps air move and keeps leaf diseases down.