You don’t have to sacrifice style when it comes to your vegetable garden. Design an exciting veggie garden this year!
There’s a lot to consider as you dream of your perfect vegetable garden: varieties, spacing, and of course, layout! Getting organized and creative with your vegetable garden layout can help you have your best growing season yet. Read on for our tips for designing and executing this year’s vegetable garden layout.
How to Begin Planning Your Vegetable Garden
Before you get to work on your vegetable garden layout plans, make sure you take stock of what you have going for you in your outdoor space. You should design your vegetable garden based on the space, sunlight, and soil available to you. Most vegetables thrive in full-sun environments, so too much shade might not work for certain veggies. Spacing is also a key consideration for your vegetable garden layout. Trying to cram too many varieties and plants into a small space will lead to weak plants with low yield.
Companion Vegetable Gardening
When planning the layout of your vegetable garden, try to select vegetables that do well growing next to each other. This is known as companion planting. Many plants can actually swap benefits when growing side-by-side, while others can compete for space and nutrients, often harming one plant.
Choosing to plant companion vegetables close together will optimize your garden layout and spacing. Here’s a quick guide for companion planting with some of our favorite vegetables:
Lettuce Loves: Carrots, Radish, Strawberries, Beets Lettuce
Loathes: Beans, Parsley
Beans Love: Carrots, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Cucumber, Marigolds, Corn
Beans Loathe: Chives, Leeks, Garlic
Onions Love: Broccoli, Cabbage, Lettuce, Tomatoes
Onions Loathe: Beans, Peas
Broccoli Loves: Celery, Dill, Rosemary, Hyssop
Broccoli Loathes: Oregano, Strawberries, Tomatoes
Cucumber Loves: Pea, Lettuce, Celery
Cucumber Loathes: Cauliflower, Potatoes, Basil
Design for Accessibility
There’s nothing worse than planting a garden only to realize that you can’t easily access it for weeding, pruning, and maintaining. When making layout plans for your vegetable garden, make sure you have adequate spacing between garden plots, rows, and fencing. Aim for main paths to be 30 inches wide for plenty of walking space. As far as garden beds, keep them to about four feet wide so that you can reach any plants without stepping into the soil. When planning your vegetable garden layout and spacing, remember that your garden needs to be a place you want to be, so remove any physical or mental obstacles by making it accessible.
Foodscaping
Vegetable gardening meets landscaping! While you’re making layout plans for your vegetable garden, remember that you don’t have to sacrifice style. Many vegetables look beautiful while they grow, so try and show them off by using decorative arbors and trellises. Whether you’re opting for sweet potatoes or tomatoes, you can find ways to let vining vegetables become a part of your garden scenery.
Front Yard Vegetable Gardening
Don’t forget that your front yard is also an opportunity to plant a vegetable garden. Front yard gardening is increasingly trendy as green thumbs everywhere seize the opportunity to reduce their grocery bills and create memorable outdoor spaces the whole neighborhood can enjoy. Since most of us can’t dig up our entire front yards, it’s an excellent opportunity to incorporate container and raised bed gardens.
Pallet Garden
It’s not trash; it’s a treasure! You can turn a wood pallet into a compact and thriving vegetable garden. Pallet gardens are a great option if you’re short on space or are looking to add another area to cover in vegetables. Try growing peppers, herbs, peas, beans, strawberries, or lettuce in your pallet garden. The slats in pallets are narrow, but there is enough space to grow a bountiful harvest. The pallet can also act as a trellis of sorts to help vining plants trail: and it looks beautiful too!
Design in Blocks and Rows
There are countless vegetable garden layouts that you can try. The two most basic layouts are the rows vegetable garden layout plan, or the block vegetable layout plan. Planting vegetables in rows is a classic and simple way to keep your garden organized and well-spaced. Plant in a north-south direction and try keeping the tallest plants on the north side of the rows. You can continue planting from tallest to shortest to prevent the largest plants from overtaking the shortest and won’t cast shadows over the shorter ones.
If you want to get a bit more creative with your vegetable garden layout, try the block method. You can create “blocks” that are around 3 or 4 square feet with paths in between. Be sure you are planting companion plants within the blocks and are aware of how big each plant will get to prevent overcrowding in each block.
Follow this guide to have a beautiful and thriving vegetable garden this year. You can play with your design ideas and see what works for you. If you need help designing your vegetable garden this year, or you’re looking for vegetables for sale in Bettendorf, visit us!
