I'm about to build my first raised garden bed in the backyard. I'm having trouble deciding on size. I can go up to about 20-25ft long and 4 or 5 feet wide, max.

I'm wanting to grow squash, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, jalapeños, maybe a few other things.

My question for the guys that have done this before, what kind of plant spacing do you use? I've read that you can plant tighter than in traditional gardens but I cant find much info on how much closer.

Any tips will be greatly appreciated.

-Doc

Not sure you can plant any tighter. Yes you will get more root depth, but your plants will still need proper spacing. I would test a few areas with tighter spacing to see if you get proper yield. I tend to go with specs on spacing, so I can weed without hurting neighboring plants.

I dont see how you could plant tomatoes closer than what they are specified. At times it is a pain getting to the fruit even when there is extra spacing. One of the benefits of a raised bed is the soil heats up faster. You can also have more control of what type of soil the top 1-2' will be in regards to nutrients, moisture retention....etc.

I'd recomend putting squash in its own box, like a 2'x2'. I grew I crookneck squash last year and it was huge. They have large leaves that will smother out other plants like your peppers and cherry tomatoes. I use 5 gallon buckets for most of my tomato plants and the 'garden' has hot peppers, sweet peppers, potatoes, cherry tomatoes and such.

I have about a dozen onions in right now and a few broccoli and Brussels sprout plants. Once the onions come out pototes will take there place and when it gets to hot for the broccoli and sprouts my peppers will take there place. In the mean time I'll have tomatoes in buckets when it gets warm enough.

But that's just how I do it, I don't have much space in my back yard.

I built a 4x12 bed.

Here's what I'm thinking. The length of the bed lies pretty much east and west.

I'm thinking I'll plant my tomatoes on the north side of the bed in a row. Then move over 18 inches or so and put in my peppers on one end and squash on the other. Thats the plan for now.

This will be my first attempt at gardening since before I was in college. We'll see how it goes.

Also, I'm going with the bush type tomatoes that will hopefully keep them from completely taking over.

You should be fine Cow Doc with a 4 foot wide bed. Better yet, stagger your plantings on each row. So each different crop aren't lined up.

My raised beds are 4'x36'. I plant tomatoes and peppers in the middle of the bed and plant beans, peas, carrots etc. along the edges of the beds. It's worked quite well so far. As mentioned before, staggering them also works.

You should also Google "square foot gardening" I can't get the link to work.
Wife and I do this every year...it works. You grow up as much as possible and not out. We get high yields every year in a very limited amount of space. 2 9x4 beds. Enough to not only eat fresh but enough to can and pickle enough to give away as Xmas presents to about 100+ people every year and keep enough to last for months afterword. I would not make it any wider than 4 feet as it gets hard to reach the center w/o killing the back.

I have the book and based my beds on his suggestions.

Here's a pretty cool site. You enter your garden size, it breaks it up into sq foot gardening, then pick what you want to plant and you can create and save your gardens. It even tells you have many to plant per sq foot. Its pretty neat and simple and you don't need an account to do it.

Kitchen Garden Planner

I've been playing with their planner. Its seems like they allow alot less space per plant than I have in mind. If I can get good yields with the spacing they show, I have enough room for tons of stuff

That entire website has good info.

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Right after everything got planted.



Last week. The broc in the first pictures is done. Pulled it up. The squash have kind of taken over. Pole beans planted on the right side trellis. Cucumbers were planted by the left one but didn't come up. Leaf lettuce up front kind of buried under the squash.

The onions, well Im not sure whats going on. They're all layed over but haven't made any kind of bulb at all.

And over look the massively overgrown grass. It kept raining and got out of hand. I've got it in shape now.