About SquareFoot Planner
SquareFoot Planner (squarefootplanner.com) is a free tool for planning a raised-bed vegetable garden the square-foot way. You draw your bed as a grid of one-foot squares, drag vegetables onto it, and the tool works out how many plants fit in each square, when to sow them, and which neighbours help or hurt each other.
What the tool actually does
The core value here is getting the square-foot-gardening math right. In this method, every one-foot square holds a set number of plants based on how much room the crop needs - the canonical densities are 1, 4, 9, or 16 plants per square (for example, one tomato, four lettuces, nine bush beans, or sixteen radishes or carrots). Get that spacing right and a small bed produces a surprising amount; get it wrong and plants either crowd each other out or waste space. The planner applies the correct density for each crop automatically, tallies your totals, and flags companion-planting notes so you can arrange the bed sensibly before you buy a single seed.
Where the plant data comes from
The spacing, sowing windows, and plant details are compiled from universitycooperative extension sources - the public horticulture guidance that land-grant universities publish for home gardeners - along with the widely used square-foot-gardening density conventions. These are solid, well-tested starting points. That said, gardening is local: your climate zone, soil, and the specific variety you plant all shift the ideal timing and spacing, so treat the numbers as a strong default, not a rule carved in stone.
The companion-planting guidance is included because gardeners find it useful, but it is worth being straight about it: most companion advice is traditional - passed down through generations of growers - rather than settled science. Some pairings have research behind them; many are folklore that happens to work in practice. Use it as a helpful nudge, not as gospel.
Who built it, and honestly
SquareFoot Planner was built by Shivam Rai as a free, well-made planning tool. I want to be honest about what this is and is not: it is a carefully built calculator and layout helper with data drawn from good public sources. It is not a master gardener dispensing personal advice, and it does not pretend to be one. The value is in the correct math, the sensible defaults, and a clean interface that saves you a spreadsheet - not in a persona.
Why it is free
The planner is free to use and will stay that way. It costs very little to run as a static website, and building it was a genuinely enjoyable project. I may add unobtrusive ads later to help cover costs, but the tool itself - the grid, the spacing math, the plant data - is not going behind a paywall.
Spotted a spacing figure or a plant detail that looks off? I would genuinely like to fix it. See the contact page to send a correction.