The Master Gardeners of Pike County explain how to design the space for your vegetable garden. They explain what goes into the design for container and raised-bed gardening.
Now that you have selected the vegetables you want to grow, it's time to find out how many of them you have room for in your raised bed, or how many containers you need.
Containers
Containers can be many sizes and shapes. Each will dictate how many plants will fit. Seedlings may start small, but they grow. We need to know how they will look at maturity and give them the proper amount of growing space. This Illinois Extension article "Making Herb and Vegetable Containers" includes a plant chart to help you figure it out.
Raised beds
No matter how large or small your raised bed is, you want to make the most of its growing space and keep it producing throughout the season. Start with pencil and paper, sketching out the ways you can arrange your seeds and plants, taking into account how much space each one needs and a planting schedule so that all of your seedlings don't ripen at the same time. Taking time to plan the layout will reap rewards.
