Square Foot Garden Plans for Spring

It takes a little bit of effort, but square foot garden plans help you make the best of your square foot garden space. When you plant the right plants together, you get the best yield. In fact, you might be surprised to learn just how much food you can grow in a small amount of space. I live in the desert, so gardening is extra difficult. Spring is the best time to plant seedlings that were started indoors in January. Unless you live in the desert as well, you might be able to wait a little bit longer to start your plants.

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This is the plan I used last Spring, and I got great results from these plans. I want you to get great results, too, show I'm sharing my square foot gardening plans with you.

Plan Your Space

Before you begin square foot gardening, you need to decide what size boxes you will use. My smaller boxes are 4'x4', and my large box is 8'x4'.  I do not recommend the long box.  It is very difficult to reach the plants in the middle.  If you want to square foot garden, stick to nothing larger than 4'x4' or 4'x6'. I wanted a big garden, so I filled my available space with as many boxes as I could. Be sure to leave enough space in between the boxes that you can comfortably kneel down in front of all the sides of each box.

Build or Purchase Boxes

The boxes are pretty easy to build, but if that's not something you want to try, check out these great garden boxes available for purchase on Amazon. (Affiliate links.)

Once you've built or purchased your boxes, divide them into square foot sections. I created mine with old blind slats that I stapled together to make a grid. The blind slats work really well because the whole grid can be lifted off the box when it's time to prepare the ground for planting. (Of course, the first time you plant, you'll prepare the ground before adding the grid.) I got the used blinds for a few dollars at Habitat for Humanity Restore.

Right now, my boxes are mostly empty, but here's what they look like in early Summer (I can't wait!):

Include a Trellis for Climbing Plants

Each of my boxes has a trellis on one side for vine plants.  They really help me get the most out of my space. You can build your own garden trellis with my simple plans. The gorgeous garden below belongs to my uncle. I only wish my garden looked that good! He taught me how to build my trellis.

What to Plant in Your Square Foot Garden

With those steps complete, you're ready to plant your garden. I filled in my space while referencing my companion planting guide. (Link below.) I wanted to be sure that the plants I put in the same box were compatible. (Some plants don't do well planted by certain crops.) I also checked the information on my seed packages to find plants that grew best in the spring and purchased seeds for vine crops to take advantage of my trellis. I put all of that information together to design my garden.

To make your own plan, I suggest drawing out your boxes, as I did in my square foot garden plan. In my first plan, my trellis' were on an outside edge of each box. When the vines spilled all over outside of the box, I moved my trellis' to go across the middle of the boxes. (That way, I could plant vines on both sides of each trellis. You can download my first plan by clicking on the download link below. It will open a pdf file that you can view or print.

I also have a blank printable that shows my garden after I moved the trellis'.

You can download a pdf of that file by clicking the download link below.

Thanks for stopping by today. Check below for more great gardening ideas.

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Thanks for stopping by, and happy gardening!