For years I did 32" row spacing because my family did that. Then I learned to do surface beds, combine 3 to 7 rows into a 32" bed, this can eliminate several walkways between rows. I can also eliminate 1 walkway between two 32" rows to gain 1 extra row. I have also been considering reducing 32" walkway to 24" or 18" to gain an extra grow area. The hardest thing to over come is, tall plants shade other plants no matter how tall the other plants are. I am getting to old to crawl and set down in narrow 18" walkways. If you want to get more from a small garden make walkways narrower and make multi row beds. I like to set down in the walkways and crawl on my hands and knees. It is hard to use a tiller in a walkway 28" or narrower unless you have a mini tiller. My walkways never need tilling soil gets compacted hard as cement from walking on it and nothing grows there. I have already eliminated 3 walkways this year. 5 years ago I eliminated 6 walkways by planting 7 rows of onions & garlic in 1 bed 32" wide. I eliminated 2 walkways by planting 3 potato rows in 1 bed 32" wide. What would have been 31 rows is now 18 rows & beds.
Here is a video that show a lady with very narrow walkways. She maximized the number of plants she can grow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtyaC9nTfbg
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Gary350
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Garden Row Spacing.
Last edited by Gary350 on Tue Oct 03, 2023 8:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
I don't have a large garden and I don't plant in rows, so, I don't know much about it. For me, the rows need to be wide enough to get through them even with the plants hanging out. In that case, although I could go with 24 inch row spacing, I have 36 inches. The other option is variable row spacing. 24 inch wide beds so you can basically straddle them and minimal row space. Just enough room for you to walk between the rows. Caveat would be that the plants would have to be short plants,18 tall would be the max. For taller plants, they would have to be in wider rows with beds up to 4 ft wide and at least 3 ft row spacing. I have a lot of plants in containers and I probably could make the rows closer, but I don't have enough space to add another row so it did not make sense to go with a minimum row. I do have an advantage with containers, because if I cannot control the width of the plants, I can always move the plants around. And I can sometimes put smaller plants between larger ones. It all depends. Right now my tomato is causing problems competing with the onions, so I may have to take out the tomato ( it is old.)
My main garden is a converted bed I inherited when we bought the house. It is roughly an oval 8x16 ft. It was divided and it still is, but I have changed the division. One side are perennials.(aloe and a lippia micromera), About a 6 ft wide section is the main garden and there is a smaller section about 2x3 ft for herbs. Even with the garden divided, the 6x16 ft section is still too wide to work without stepping in the garden. My solution is stepping stones. I can move the stepping stones to accommodate what I am planting. For instance, the corn has a 2 x 3 ft space in the center of the corn planting for access. Usually I plant cabbages and chard in the cooler months. I don't grow a lot of the same plant. I have a couple of broccoli, a couple of semposai, one or two komatsuna, one cutting celery and a few Swiss chard and perpetual spinach. The rest are small blocks of things like bok choy and nematode resistant bush beans (contender) or marigolds (also for nematode control and to bring in beneficial insects). I can place the stepping stones in the garden to minimize the space the path takes up and maximize the space for planting.
Larger plants that would be a shading and space issue are kept in containers. Tomatoes, cucumbers, pole beans, peas, zucchini taro, ginger, turmeric, and citrus are all in containers. The 2 tower gardens I added can also hold 30 and 36 (respectively) plants in their pockets. Although the tiers can handle larger plants, they are unwieldy. So, the tiers have things like lettuce, mini Asian cabbages, bush beans, and herbs.
I have learned not to put plants with large systems in the towers because they take over the root space ( Italian parsley, kale) I can put chard and Tokyo Bekana in the tiers but I have to harvest them smaller, which is not what I usually do.
I think variable row spacing, and row width could be a solution. The taller plants would need more room, but if you place them in the right places, they will only shade plants that need it like cilantro, spinach, and green onions. You can make the planting beds and aisles narrower when you have short plants that won't be a shading issue. If you have beds you are going to harvest all at once, you only need enough space for maintenance. Beds you harvest intermittently should be planted on the outside for easy access. For instance. Corn is harvested all at once , vs komatsuna, kale, or chard which can be harvested over a long period of time so I need those where I can easily reach them.
My main garden is a converted bed I inherited when we bought the house. It is roughly an oval 8x16 ft. It was divided and it still is, but I have changed the division. One side are perennials.(aloe and a lippia micromera), About a 6 ft wide section is the main garden and there is a smaller section about 2x3 ft for herbs. Even with the garden divided, the 6x16 ft section is still too wide to work without stepping in the garden. My solution is stepping stones. I can move the stepping stones to accommodate what I am planting. For instance, the corn has a 2 x 3 ft space in the center of the corn planting for access. Usually I plant cabbages and chard in the cooler months. I don't grow a lot of the same plant. I have a couple of broccoli, a couple of semposai, one or two komatsuna, one cutting celery and a few Swiss chard and perpetual spinach. The rest are small blocks of things like bok choy and nematode resistant bush beans (contender) or marigolds (also for nematode control and to bring in beneficial insects). I can place the stepping stones in the garden to minimize the space the path takes up and maximize the space for planting.
Larger plants that would be a shading and space issue are kept in containers. Tomatoes, cucumbers, pole beans, peas, zucchini taro, ginger, turmeric, and citrus are all in containers. The 2 tower gardens I added can also hold 30 and 36 (respectively) plants in their pockets. Although the tiers can handle larger plants, they are unwieldy. So, the tiers have things like lettuce, mini Asian cabbages, bush beans, and herbs.
I have learned not to put plants with large systems in the towers because they take over the root space ( Italian parsley, kale) I can put chard and Tokyo Bekana in the tiers but I have to harvest them smaller, which is not what I usually do.
I think variable row spacing, and row width could be a solution. The taller plants would need more room, but if you place them in the right places, they will only shade plants that need it like cilantro, spinach, and green onions. You can make the planting beds and aisles narrower when you have short plants that won't be a shading issue. If you have beds you are going to harvest all at once, you only need enough space for maintenance. Beds you harvest intermittently should be planted on the outside for easy access. For instance. Corn is harvested all at once , vs komatsuna, kale, or chard which can be harvested over a long period of time so I need those where I can easily reach them.
When I began what became my current "big veggie garden," I was assigned a 30' wide space. It had to do with the length of the mainline pipes supplying water and the placement of sprinklers between my garden and my neighbor's -- the property owner's garden. The width worked out because I have been using 4' wide beds & 2' wide paths for years. So, my space could hold 5 beds with paths between and on the perimeter.
In 2020, & with the C-19 relief check
, we bought a new rear-tine tiller. It has a tilling width of 17" and because it moves soil to the outside, it tills the paths fairly well, covering weeds on the outside with soil. And yes, weeds grow in the paths.
A problem arose with the sweetcorn. With the old tiller, I could maintain 2 rows per bed and use the tiller in both the paths & the middle of the bed. The new tiller meant I had to abandon the planting of the corn in 2 rows in the 4' beds because I didn't think tilling that close to the plants was safe. So, my "permanent paths" became less that permanent as I move the corn patch around to new locations each year.
Downsizing a few years ago meant the big veggie garden only makes use of that full 200' length of that ground and gardening no longer occurs anywhere else on the property. Long & narrow but we don't plant sweet corn in 1 single row 200' long. I don't plant anything in a row that long so there are cross paths centered at 50'. The corn can be planted in a couple of blocks.
Four foot beds have been a comfortable width for me to reach across. There is considerable stretching going on in my garden with every visit
. I'm 6 + feet tall and often see DW putting her foot on a bed. But ... she has small feet .
Steve
In 2020, & with the C-19 relief check
, we bought a new rear-tine tiller. It has a tilling width of 17" and because it moves soil to the outside, it tills the paths fairly well, covering weeds on the outside with soil. And yes, weeds grow in the paths. A problem arose with the sweetcorn. With the old tiller, I could maintain 2 rows per bed and use the tiller in both the paths & the middle of the bed. The new tiller meant I had to abandon the planting of the corn in 2 rows in the 4' beds because I didn't think tilling that close to the plants was safe. So, my "permanent paths" became less that permanent as I move the corn patch around to new locations each year.
Downsizing a few years ago meant the big veggie garden only makes use of that full 200' length of that ground and gardening no longer occurs anywhere else on the property. Long & narrow but we don't plant sweet corn in 1 single row 200' long
. I don't plant anything in a row that long so there are cross paths centered at 50'. The corn can be planted in a couple of blocks.Four foot beds have been a comfortable width for me to reach across. There is considerable stretching going on in my garden with every visit
. I'm 6 + feet tall and often see DW putting her foot on a bed. But ... she has small feet .Steve
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applestar
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All of my garden beds are essentially designed as 2~3 ft wide with 2~3 ft wide semi-permanent paths. The beds are mounded with soil from the paths so that the paths act as swales for irrigation.
The mounded wide “rows” are typically 6~8 inches taller than the swale/path at planting, but may settle down to 4~6 inches sometimes. The height of the bed vs. depth of the swale is somewhat dependent on pitch of the slope and typically wet vs. dry due to pooled rain due to house downspouts, etc.
Some of the row direction — north-south vs. east-west are pre-determined due to shape of available space and design, but I do have blocks of small beds that can be rearranged in short rows depending on what I’m planting (usually height consideration). Short rows (and some tightly planted spaces might only allow room for 18” wide paths.)
When I do re-dig the rows and path/swales, I like to take the opportunity to bury half finished compost and garden waste in double fig deep trenches.
My Spiral Garden was originally designed with 2~3 ft wide continuous mounded spiral with 2 ft wide swale/path, but since last year, I’ve started breaking up the spiral into arcs with narrow access that also help to direct the water in/out of the inner swale/path, so I can just direct streams of trickled water from the hose to flood them as needed instead of the unreliable single long spiral.
Now, having said that, my row/path widths have been somewhat inconsistent since there is continual scraping of soil from the path and raising the planting rows — more when the path is mulched well and breaks down, loosening some of the clay subsoil.
The mounded wide “rows” are typically 6~8 inches taller than the swale/path at planting, but may settle down to 4~6 inches sometimes. The height of the bed vs. depth of the swale is somewhat dependent on pitch of the slope and typically wet vs. dry due to pooled rain due to house downspouts, etc.
Some of the row direction — north-south vs. east-west are pre-determined due to shape of available space and design, but I do have blocks of small beds that can be rearranged in short rows depending on what I’m planting (usually height consideration). Short rows (and some tightly planted spaces might only allow room for 18” wide paths.)
When I do re-dig the rows and path/swales, I like to take the opportunity to bury half finished compost and garden waste in double fig deep trenches.
My Spiral Garden was originally designed with 2~3 ft wide continuous mounded spiral with 2 ft wide swale/path, but since last year, I’ve started breaking up the spiral into arcs with narrow access that also help to direct the water in/out of the inner swale/path, so I can just direct streams of trickled water from the hose to flood them as needed instead of the unreliable single long spiral.
Now, having said that, my row/path widths have been somewhat inconsistent since there is continual scraping of soil from the path and raising the planting rows — more when the path is mulched well and breaks down, loosening some of the clay subsoil.