Placing plants in your vegetable garden is easy when you use a grid system. Each diagram below shows how to plant the seed or seedlings of one or more vegetable species, whether you’re planting in the ground or in a raised bed. Plant adjacent areas using the same or different grids, and mix different vegetable species in your beds to vary your harvest.
Some diagrams allow multiple plants in a single square; visually divide the area as shown into the orange dashed units and place the number of plants required. Other diagrams use two, three, four or even nine base squares; divide the area according to the orange dashed lines, and place a seedling at the center of each area or as shown in the diagram.
For best results, make small, separated plantings of each vegetable rather than a single, massed planting. (Dividing your plantings like this helps reduce disease or pest damage.)
Vegetable Planting - Grid A
Broccoli, cauliflower and broccoflower, collards, corn (late), horseradish, husk tomato and tomatillo, tomato (vine), melon (summer), melon (winter), peanut, popcorn, potato, strawberry, sunflower, sweet potato and yam
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/Hildebrand Design
Vegetable Planting - Grid B
Amaranth, beans (dried, fava and lima [pole]), endive and escarole, lettuce (butterhead, celtuce, crisphead, leaf and romaine), rutabaga, shallot, spinach (New Zealand) and Swiss chard
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/Hildebrand Design
Vegetable Planting - Grid C
Beet, salsify and spinach
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/Hildebrand Design
Vegetable Planting - Grid D
Carrot, garlic, onions (bunching and head) and radish
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/Hildebrand Design
Vegetable Planting - Grid E
Celery and celeriac, Chinese cabbage, kohlrabi, leeks (on vertical supports), lima beans (bush), chicory, Belgian endive, radicchio and cucumber
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/Hildebrand Design
Vegetable Planting - Grid F
On vertical supports: Chickpeas or garbanzo beans, beans (snap, wax and romano [bush or pole]) and peas (garden and sugar [bush or pole])
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/Hildebrand Design
