Garden Bed Planner
Enter bed size and select crops to estimate plant counts from real spacing data — printable.
Select crops (spacing auto-filled from our database):
A 8 × 4 ft bed is 32 sq ft. With the selected crops you can fit roughly 667 plants (grid spacing, no paths).
| Crop | Spacing | Per row | Rows | Plants |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tomato | 24″ | 5 | 3 | 15 |
| Lettuce | 8″ | 13 | 7 | 91 |
| Carrot | 3″ | 33 | 17 | 561 |
Plant counts are a grid estimate based on each crop's recommended spacing. In practice leave paths and thin as needed. Combine with the planting calendar for timing.
What the inputs mean
Enter the bed size and select the crops you want. The tool works from each crop’s plants-per-square-foot density, which is derived from its recommended spacing, and multiplies it by the area to give counts. Where crops differ sharply in density, that difference is the layout decision rather than a detail.
How to act on the answer
Use the counts to buy seed and to sanity-check the plan before you plant. Spacing determines yield more than fertilizer does, because a crowded bed competes for light, water, and nutrients and produces fewer harvestable plants than a properly spaced one — so when a count looks low, that is usually the spacing doing its job rather than the tool under-counting.
What this tool cannot know
It produces a count, not a diagram, and it does not model trellising, vertical growing, path space, or the shading a tall crop casts over a short one. It also assumes each crop gets its own block; if you plan to interplant a fast crop between slow ones, treat the counts as an upper bound.
Where it fits in the season
A calculator is only as good as the location data behind it, so two other pages usually belong in the same session. The ZIP lookup establishes your zone and typical frost dates, which is the baseline that garden bed planner is reasoning from, and the monthly zone checklists turn the same baseline into an ordered set of jobs for the current month. If you are working from a specific planting plan rather than a blank bed, the garden plan templates carry published spacing and crop lists you can feed straight into the planner.
Everything on this page runs in your browser from data shipped with the site. There is no account, nothing is uploaded, and the numbers you type are not stored on a server — which also means a printed sheet or a screenshot is the only copy you will have if you close the page. See all garden tools →
Related guides
Watering guide · Fertilizing guide · Composting guide · Raised bed guide · all topic guides →