Guides
Square Foot Gardening Guides
Short, practical, and honest. Everything here follows the square-foot method and cites real university extension sources, so you can grow more food in a small raised bed without guessing.
Square foot gardening turns a small raised bed into a tidy grid of 1-foot squares and plants each square at a fixed density. It is the fastest way for a beginner to get vegetable spacing right, waste less seed, and pull a steady harvest from a tiny footprint. These four guides cover the whole method end to end. When you are ready to design your own bed, the freebed planner and theplant spacing chart do the counting for you.
What Is Square Foot Gardening?
The method in plain English: a 4x4 grid of 1-foot squares, the 1/4/9/16 spacing rule, why it beats rows, and how to start one this weekend.
Read the guide ->Companion Planting Chart (and What Science Actually Supports)
An honest table of the popular pairings, which ones university extension research backs, and which are traditional folklore worth trying but not trusting.
Read the guide ->What to Plant in a 4x4 Garden: 3 Ready-Made Plans
Copy a salad bed, a salsa bed, or a beginner mixed bed - each with the exact 16-square layout and plant counts at correct SFG density.
Read the guide ->The Best Raised Bed Soil Mix (Mel's Mix Recipe)
The 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat or coir, 1/3 coarse vermiculite recipe, exactly how much a 4x4x6 bed needs (about 8 cubic feet), and cheaper substitutions.
Read the guide ->Frequently asked questions
Where should a beginner start?
Start with "What Is Square Foot Gardening?" to learn the grid and the 1/4/9/16 spacing rule, then use "What to Plant in a 4x4 Garden" to copy a finished layout. Build the bed, fill it with the soil mix from the Mel's Mix guide, and you have a working garden in a weekend.
Do I have to read all four guides?
No. Each guide stands alone. If you already have a bed built and filled, jump straight to the planting plans. If you are still deciding whether the method is for you, read the overview first.
Plan your bed square by square
Open the planner