February 5, 2026

How to plan a vegetable garden

Planning a vegetable garden is where most people either overthink things or skip straight to buying seeds at random. Both approaches end the same way: a messy bed in July with three zucchini plants competing for the same square foot and tomatoes shading out everything behind them.

A little planning goes a long way. You don't need graph paper and color-coded spreadsheets. You need answers to about five questions.

Question 1: Where does the sun hit?

Go stand in your yard at 10 AM, noon, and 3 PM on a sunny day. Watch where the shadows fall. Most vegetables need a minimum of 6 hours of direct sun. Tomatoes, peppers, squash, and beans want 8 or more.

If you have a spot that gets full sun from about 9 AM to 4 PM, that's ideal. Morning sun is better than afternoon sun because it dries dew off the leaves, which reduces disease.

If you only have 4-5 hours of sun, you can still grow lettuce, spinach, kale, herbs, and root vegetables. But tomatoes and peppers will struggle and produce much less.

The other thing to check: is the spot near a tree? Tree roots extend way beyond the canopy, and they'll compete with your vegetables for water and nutrients. Even a bed that gets full sun can underperform if it's within 15 feet of a big maple or oak.

Question 2: How big?

Smaller than you think. This is the number one beginner mistake. A 4x8 foot raised bed or a 10x10 foot in-ground plot is plenty for your first year. You can grow a surprising amount of food in 32 square feet.

A reasonable first-year garden might hold:

• 3-4 tomato plants
• 2-3 pepper plants
• A row of bush beans
• A few lettuce plants
• Some herbs (basil, parsley)

That fits in a single 4x8 bed with room to spare. A 200-square-foot garden sounds small until you're weeding it at 6 PM on a Wednesday after work.

Question 3: What do you actually eat?

Grow what your household eats. Sounds obvious, but I see people grow butternut squash because a blog told them it stores well, then realize nobody in the family likes squash. Meanwhile they're buying tomatoes at the store every week.

Make a short list of vegetables you buy regularly. That's your starting point. If you eat salads, grow lettuce. If you cook with peppers, grow peppers. If you eat a lot of herbs, grow basil, cilantro, and parsley because the markup at the grocery store is absurd for fresh herbs.

Skip anything you're only mildly curious about in year one. There's always next year.

Question 4: What's your frost date?

Your planting schedule depends on when frost ends in spring and returns in fall. Look up your frost dates here if you don't know them.

Once you have your last frost date, you can work out when to start seeds indoors, when to transplant, and when to direct sow. Without this date, you're guessing.

Planting too early is worse than planting too late. A tomato transplanted into cold soil sits there doing nothing for weeks. The same tomato planted two weeks later into warm soil catches up within days. I keep learning this lesson.

Question 5: What goes where?

The basic rule: tall plants on the north side, short plants on the south side. This way the tall stuff doesn't shade the short stuff. In a 4x8 bed oriented east-west:

• North side (back): Tomatoes on stakes or in cages. They'll reach 4-6 feet tall.
• Middle: Peppers, which stay 2-3 feet. Bush beans, which stay about 2 feet.
• South side (front): Lettuce, herbs, and low-growing crops that benefit from some afternoon shade cast by the taller plants.

Leave enough space between plants. Crowding is the second biggest beginner mistake after going too big. Tomatoes need 24 inches between plants. Peppers need 18 inches. Lettuce can go 8-10 inches apart. Bush beans need 4-6 inches.

Draw a rough map

You don't need software. A piece of paper with a rectangle and some labels is fine. Write in what goes where, with spacing noted. This takes 10 minutes and saves you from that July realization that you planted the bush beans where the tomatoes need to go.

Keep the map. Next year, you'll want to rotate crops. Don't plant tomatoes in the same spot two years running if you can avoid it. Same family crops (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant are all nightshades) should move to a different section each year to reduce soil disease buildup.

Timing it all out

Here's a rough sequence for a May 1 last frost date:

• Early March: Start tomato and pepper seeds indoors
• Mid March: Start broccoli and cabbage seeds indoors
• Early April: Direct sow peas and radishes outside (they handle frost)
• Late April: Direct sow lettuce, carrots, beets outside
• After May 1: Transplant tomatoes and peppers outside
• Mid May: Direct sow beans, cucumbers, squash outside

The PlantWhenNow planting calendar generates a customized version of this based on your zip code.

Don't plan for perfection

Your first garden will have problems. Bugs, disease, weird weather, things you planted too close together. That's fine. Every experienced gardener's first year was messy. The goal for year one is to learn what works in your specific spot, with your specific soil, in your specific climate. The plan is just a starting point. Nature will edit it for you.