I've mentioned before that I love organization, planning, maps, etc. I also love excel and spreadsheets. I've been known to say that if I could use a spreadsheet to run my life I would be a very happy camper!
It is probably no surprise then that I use a spreadsheet system to help me determine how much of each vegetable crop I need to plant in my garden in order to produce what our family would like to eat. I do a similar thing with the flowers we grow for bouquets, but on a much simpler level. Before we dive into the details, let’s go over a few terms so we are all speaking the same language.
Row Spacing. Each crop has an ideal amount of space that it wants between itself and its friends. Most of my flower crops are planted at 9" spacing - 9" between one snapdragon and another one in the same row AND in another row. Crops that are direct seeded, like radishes, carrots, beets and salad greens, are often spaced much closer together and then thinned to a distance that will allow them to grow to an ideal or desired size. You'll need to know the spacing for your crop so you can determine how many of the plants will fit in your specific space. Spacing requirements are often listed on the seed packets, but can quickly be found doing an internet
search. I often use Johnny's Seeds or High Mowing Seeds for a reference, too.
Bedfeet (bedft). This term is fairly specific to agriculture and refers to how long your row of a crop is or how much linear space it takes up in the field. For instance, if my beds are 30" wide and 12' long, I have 12 bedft. Within that bed I may have 2-5 individual rows of plants, which is why we talk about bedft instead of rows.
In my last blog post, we reviewed mapping your garden and then assigning a crop to each bed in your garden. Now we’ll figure out how many plants or seeds you’ll need to fill those beds! Yes, we will be using math in the real world J
A working example starting with a bedft amount:
In my earlier example, I had 12 bedft of flowers. Let’s say that I want to plant 5 bedft of "Madame Butterfly Double Bronze" snapdragons in that row. How many plants do I need for that amount of space?
Here’s what I know: My bed is 36" wide and my spacing for my snapdragons is 9". I can fit 4 rows across in my bed.
The equation to find out how many plants I need is: ((bed length x # of rows/bed)*12)/plant spacing = number of plants needed
I use *12 to convert from feet to inches, but you can omit that step if all of your numbers are in feet.
Let’s plug in the numbers we already know for my 5 bedft of snapdragons:
((5 feet x 4 rows)*12”)/ 9” spacing.
((20)*12)/9
240/9
26.7 plants for 5 bedft.
You can use the same equation to find out how many seeds you need. Most direct seeded crops like spinach, radish, carrots & beets are planted in beds with 3 rows. Peas and pole beans are typically planted in 2 rows, one on each side of a support structure for them to climb.
An example: radishes – 2 bedft
((bed length x # of rows/bed)*12)/plant spacing = number of plants needed
Radishes: ((2’ x 3 rows)*12)/2” = 36 seeds
Next, we’ll work on the timing of the plantings.
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