You’ve built your raised bed, know what soil to use, and decided what vegetables you want to plant. Now what?

Step 1: Decide where to place your raised bed

One of the best things about gardening in a raised bed is that it gives you flexibility to put it in the optimal growing space. In order to get the most out of your raised bed placement, follow these guidelines:

• Place the raised bed in a space that gets at least 6 hours of sunlight per day in the spring, summer, and fall. If your raised garden gets less than 6 hours of sunlight per day, some vegetables will not produce to their full potential, or at all.

• Make sure it is easily accessible from all sides. It may be tempting to place the bed against a wall, but doing so will make it difficult to tend to vegetables in the back of the garden.

• Place the raised bed away from common areas where there is a high risk of dog activity. No one wants to worry about a dog doing their business on their vegetables!

Step 2: Plan your plot

A well organized garden is a major key to growing success. Just keep a few things in mind and it’ll be smooth sailing:

• Vegetables that grow the tallest should be placed in the back of the bed, the farthest away from the sun’s rays. If they are placed further up in the bed, they’ll shade smaller vegetables and prevent them from growing to their full potential.

• Maximize your raised bed space by taking advantage of vegetables like beans, cucumbers, and peas that have varieties that grow up trellises. Plant these on either the back or the sides of the garden bed so you can support them with trellises along the border of the bed. Just make sure to be mindful of where the sun is shining and don’t place trellises where they will shade other vegetables. You’ll get much more production out of vegetables that grow up out of the bed than with ones that are constrained to just growing in the garden bed itself.

• Don’t plant the same vegetable in the same place every year. If the same vegetable is planted in the same space every year it can be susceptible to soil-born diseases that can affect the harvest.

• Plant the optimal number of plants in each square foot. Each vegetable has a maximum number of plants that can successfully grow in each square foot. See our “What to Plant” page for the optimal number of plants for each vegetable/square foot, or use the worksheet below.

Want to make organizing your garden plot easy? Try our square foot garden organizer or one of our sample 4’ x 4’ garden plots below.

Square Foot Garden Organizer

Use this worksheet to easily plan your vegetable garden plot. Just select what vegetable you want to plant in each square and it will automatically populate the number of seeds that should be planted in each square foot.

Sample Garden Plots

Greatest Hits Garden Plot

This perfectly balanced garden plot is designed to produce the greatest hits all summer long. From salad vegetables in the spring and early summer, to beans, herbs and onions starting in the middle of summer, and then tomatoes, peppers and beets in the mid to late summer. Use this plot and you’ll always be able to run out to the back yard and grab fresh produce for your dinner.

Kid Zone Garden Plot

This garden plot is perfect for your budding kid gardener. It’s packed full of sweet, colorful and fun veggies your child will love to eat right off the vine. The key to this garden plot is choosing the right type of each vegetable. Growing vegetables with fun colors such as yellow tomatoes, multi-colored radishes, carrots and beets make it exciting for kids of all ages to harvest and eat the produce.

Pickling & Canning Garden Plot

If your idea of a fun time is stocking up for winter, this is the perfect plot for you! Grow an abundance of tomatoes, peppers, and other vegetables perfect for preserving along with their accompanying herbs!

Step 3: Start Seeds Indoors or Transplant?

After you’ve planned out your garden plot the next step is to start planting! When doing so, the first thing to decide is whether to use transplants or start seeds indoors for the plants that need a head start on the growing season. Most vegetables can be planted directly outdoors up to 4 weeks before your area’s last frost date, but some garden favorites (think tomatoes, peppers, eggplant), take so long to grow that it is good to give them a head start by either starting the seeds inside 6 weeks before the last frost date or buying them as transplants from the nursery. A transplant is just a single vegetable plant that has already started growing when you buy it. You then sow it directly into your garden as a fully formed plant. Our “What to Plant” page gives seed starting recommendations for each vegetable.

Pros to starting seeds indoors:

• Seeds are cheaper than transplants. For example, a packet of 25 tomato seeds can be purchased for around $2.00, where as one tomato plant transplant can be $5-$7 at the nursery. Seeds can also be used for multiple growing seasons, so if you spend $20 on seeds for a back yard garden one year, you should have plenty of seeds left to use the same seed packets the next year. Just remember when planting seeds a year later to plant more seeds than you think you need since there will be a lower germination rate.

• A wider variety of seeds are available. Looking for that specific heirloom variety of cucumber? You are much more likely to find it in a seed packet from one of the many seed catalogs online than you are at the nursery.

Cons to starting seeds indoors:

• You may need equipment. Once seeds germinate (pop up from the soil), they need at least 6 hours of natural or artificial sunlight each day until you move them outdoors and into your garden. If you have a window that gets 6 hours of sunlight every day, yahtzee! If not, you’ll have to buy and install a grow light for your seeds, which may not be an ideal situation depending on your circumstances.

• Having small containers of seeds germinating may not work with home decor. Depending on your living situation, it may not be appropriate to have little containers of dirt hanging out for a month and a half. Up to you! :)

Our recommendation for first time gardeners is to start with transplants for the seeds that take a long time and use seeds for vegetables that are best planted directly into the ground a few weeks before the last frost. Then, in subsequent years once you have your bearings, try branching out with starting seeds indoors. Once you have a set up for indoor seed starting you can also grow herbs and other vegetables year round!

Step 4: Plant your seeds

Sowing seeds is a simple process, but a little knowledge is necessary. Remember these tips:

• The number of plants that can be planted in each square foot is the final number of seedlings or plants you want in each square. To ensure you successfully plant that number of plants, it is a good practice to sow 2-3 seeds for each final plant you need. If you are using older seeds, plant more than that. One or two weeks after the seeds germinate, find the sturdiest looking seedling of each group and pluck out the other seedlings that germinated. Keep those seedlings to use as a microgreen garnish for that night’s dinner!

• Spread your seeds out evenly across each square foot. The number of plants recommended for each square foot is based on the amount of space each plant needs to flourish. If you are going to plant 9 plants in one square, make sure they are spaced evenly and all have the same amount of space surrounding them.

Step 5: Support your vegetables

Once the growing seasons gets into full swing, some of the vegetables that grow the tallest or grow up vines will need supports. These vegetables should have all been planted at the back of your garden or along the side, so they should be easy to support. Trellises can be pushed into the very back of the garden bed to support vegetables that have vines that like to grow upward. For larger plants like tomatoes and peppers that become bushy and heavy, insert a sturdy stake next to the stem of each plant and tie it to stake in a few places. This will ensure the plants stay up and can support the heavy fruit they bear.