Book 4 · Garden Math

Plant Spacing & Counts

Give it a bed and a seed packet's spacing and it answers the only question you actually have: how many plants fit, and how many seeds should you buy. Row method and square-foot method, side by side.

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Enter the bed and the spacing.
From the book — Chapter 3. Rows across = bed width ÷ row spacing; plants along each row = bed length ÷ plant spacing; multiply for the total. The square-foot method gets to the same place from the other direction: at 12 in spacing you fit 1 plant per square foot, at 6 in you fit 4, at 4 in you fit 9, at 3 in you fit 16 — each is (12 ÷ spacing)². Which counting mode you want matters by one plant per row: filling a bed you leave half the spacing at each end and divide; marking out a row with a plant at each end, you divide and add one.

Staggering rows fits a few more plants — in theory about 15%, in practice usually less once rows round down to whole plants. Everything stays in your browser.