Your Spacing Results
Select a crop and enter your bed size to see your complete spacing plan.
Quick Spacing Reference Chart
| Vegetable | Spacing (in.) | Depth (in.) | Per Sq Ft |
|---|
How Many Plants Fit Your Garden Bed? Find out instantly.
Select a crop and enter your bed size to see your complete spacing plan.
| Vegetable | Spacing (in.) | Depth (in.) | Per Sq Ft |
|---|
Getting seed spacing right is one of the highest-leverage decisions in gardening. Too close and plants compete for nutrients, airflow drops, and disease spreads. Too far apart and you waste valuable bed space. Our calculator takes the guesswork out completely.
Traditional row gardens include wide walking paths — the seed packet spacing accounts for this. In a raised bed, you never walk on the soil, so you can ignore row spacing entirely and use plant-to-plant spacing in all directions, dramatically increasing your yield per square foot.
Divide your bed into one-foot squares. Fit 1 extra-large plant (tomato, squash), 4 large plants (lettuce, basil), 9 medium plants (spinach, beets), or 16 small plants (carrots, radishes) per square. This method can double or triple your harvest from the same footprint.
Seeds planted too shallow dry out before germinating. Too deep and they exhaust their energy before reaching sunlight. Most vegetable seeds should be planted at a depth of 2–3 times their diameter. Root crops like carrots and beets need loose soil to the full depth of their roots.
Many gardeners sow 2–3 seeds per spot to account for germination failure. Once seedlings reach 2–3 inches tall, thin to the strongest plant per spot. Snip extras at soil level rather than pulling — this avoids disturbing neighboring roots.
Carrots, radishes, onions, arugula, and chives thrive at tight spacing. At 3 inches apart, a 4×8 bed holds over 500 carrots. These crops are ideal for intensive production and succession planting every two weeks for continuous harvest.
Lettuce, spinach, kale, beets, and bush beans fall here. A 4×8 raised bed at 8-inch spacing yields roughly 72 lettuce heads. These crops offer the best balance between yield density and air circulation for healthy foliage.
Broccoli, cabbage, peppers, and pole beans need generous room. Crowding these causes overlapping canopies that trap moisture and invite fungal disease. Give them the full recommended distance — especially in humid climates.
Tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini, and melons are space-hungry. A single indeterminate tomato plant at 24 inches in a raised bed still needs a strong cage or trellis. Squash and melons can be trained vertically to reclaim horizontal space.
Use the spacing below as a quick reference. Raised bed spacing applies in all directions; row spacing is for traditional in-ground rows only.
| Vegetable | Raised Bed Spacing | Row Spacing (between rows) | Planting Depth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tomatoes | 24 in | 36–48 in | Deep (bury stem) |
| Peppers | 18 in | 24–36 in | Same depth as pot |
| Cucumbers | 12 in (trellised) | 48–72 in | ½–1 in |
| Lettuce (head) | 12 in | 12–18 in | ⅛ in |
| Spinach | 4–6 in | 12 in | ½ in |
| Kale | 12–18 in | 18–24 in | ¼–½ in |
| Carrots | 3 in | 12–18 in | ¼ in |
| Radishes | 2 in | 12 in | ½ in |
| Beets | 4 in | 12–18 in | ½ in |
| Bush Beans | 4–6 in | 18–24 in | 1–1.5 in |
| Peas | 2–4 in | 18–24 in | 1–1.5 in |
| Broccoli | 18 in | 24–36 in | ¼–½ in |
| Sweet Corn | 12 in | 30–36 in | 1–2 in |
| Onions | 4 in | 12 in | ½ in (sets) or ¼ in (seed) |
Divide your bed length (in inches) by the recommended plant spacing. For a 10-foot row (120 inches) with 6-inch spacing, that’s 20 plants per row. Multiply by your number of rows to get the total. Our calculator does all of this automatically for any crop and bed size.
Plant spacing is the gap between individual plants within a single row. Row spacing is the distance between parallel rows — this accounts for walking paths and equipment access in traditional in-ground gardens. In raised beds, row spacing is irrelevant: use plant spacing in all four directions.
It depends entirely on the crop. A 4×8 bed (32 sq ft) holds about 32 lettuce heads at 12-inch spacing, roughly 512 radishes at 2-inch spacing, or just 6 tomato plants at 24-inch spacing. Use our calculator above to get an instant count for any crop.
Yes, especially in raised beds with rich, deeply worked soil. Reducing spacing by 10–15% is generally safe with good soil nutrition. However, tighter spacing reduces airflow, which raises the risk of fungal diseases like powdery mildew. In humid climates, stick to recommended distances or even increase them slightly.
Square foot gardening, popularized by Mel Bartholomew, divides raised beds into 1-foot squares and plants each section based on mature plant size. Small crops like radishes get 16 per square; medium crops like spinach get 9; large crops like peppers get 4; and extra-large crops like tomatoes occupy an entire square or more. It’s one of the most space-efficient methods for home gardeners.
This Seed Spacing Calculator was built for US home gardeners growing in raised beds, in-ground rows, or containers. Spacing data is based on USDA extension recommendations and widely tested square foot gardening guidelines. Use it alongside our Planting Date Calculator and Raised Bed Soil Calculator for a complete garden plan.