Square Foot Garden Calculator

A garden bed can only hold whole plants — if the math works out to 13.7 plants fitting along a row, the thirteenth plant is the last one that actually has its full spacing allowance, and a fourteenth would crowd its neighbors. Rounding down keeps the plant count physically realistic rather than optimistic.

Plants per Square Foot is calculated purely from your spacing input, independent of bed size — it tells you the density a given spacing produces anywhere. Total Plants combines that density with your actual bed length, width, and path allowance to give the real count for the specific bed you're planning.

Spacing varies significantly by crop and variety — leafy greens like lettuce often use around 6 inches, bush beans and carrots somewhat more, while sprawling plants like tomatoes or squash need 18 to 24 inches or more to avoid competing for light and airflow. Check your seed packet or a regional extension guide for the specific variety you're growing.

Entering a path width subtracts that strip from the bed's usable width before the plant grid is calculated, since a path is space you walk on rather than plant in. Leaving it at zero assumes the entire bed width is planted edge to edge, which only makes sense for a bed narrow enough to reach across without stepping in it.

The calculator only models a single path subtracted once from the bed's width, so a bed divided into several planting strips by multiple paths won't be represented accurately in one pass. Running each strip through separately, using that strip's own length and width, gives a more accurate total than trying to force a multi-path layout into one calculation.