Garden Planner

A good garden starts on paper, or on a screen. Planning before you plant saves money on soil and seed, avoids crowded beds, and makes sure every crop goes in at the right time. The Garden Voila garden planner is a set of free planning tools that work together: a raised bed planner for designing beds square by square, a vegetable garden planner for laying out a whole plot with planting dates, a container garden planner for patios and balconies, and a layout generator that drafts a complete bed layout for you in seconds. Your plans save automatically in your browser, and the panel above shows every plan you have saved on this device.

Choose the right planner

Many gardeners use more than one. A common workflow is to generate a layout, send the first bed to the raised bed planner to fine-tune it, and use the container planner for herbs by the kitchen door.

How the planners work

Each planner uses the same plant data as the rest of the site, from our plant database. When you place a crop, the planner applies its typical square foot spacing: for example 16 carrots per square foot, 4 lettuces, 1 pepper, or one zucchini per 9 square feet. That means every plan comes with realistic plant counts, not just colored squares.

• Grids are in feet. Each square on a bed or garden grid represents one square foot.
• Tap or drag to paint. Choose a crop and tap squares, or drag across several at once. Choose the eraser to clear squares.
• Plans save automatically in your browser as soon as you make a change. They stay on this device; nothing is uploaded or shared.
• Print any plan to take it into the garden or keep it with your notes.

Planning a garden step by step

1. Know your space. Measure the area and note where the sun falls through the day. The garden size calculator works out growing area after paths, and the sunlight requirement finder tells you what grows in the light you have.
2. Choose your crops. Start with what you like to eat, then check what suits your conditions with the plant finder.
3. Decide on beds or rows. Raised beds suit small spaces and poor soil; rows suit large plots. Our comparison of square foot and row gardening explains the tradeoffs.
4. Lay it out. Use the layout generator for a quick draft, or paint your own design in the raised bed or vegetable garden planner.
5. Check companions. The companion plant finder shows what grows well together and what to keep apart.
6. Set your timing. Add your frost date in the vegetable garden planner, or use the planting calendar, to see when each crop goes in.
7. Make your shopping list. The garden shopping list generator turns the plan into soil, lumber, mulch and supplies.

Principles of a good garden layout

Put the sun first

Most vegetables need at least six hours of direct sun. Place beds in the sunniest part of the yard, and within each bed, put tall crops such as tomatoes, pole beans, corn and trellised cucumbers on the north side, so they do not shade shorter crops. Leafy greens can take the spots that get some afternoon shade.

Keep beds reachable

Beds about 4 feet wide can be reached from both sides without stepping on the soil, which keeps it loose and productive. Beds against a fence or wall should be no more than about 2 to 3 feet wide. Paths of 18 to 24 inches suit walking and kneeling; leave at least one path about 3 feet wide for a wheelbarrow.

Group by needs

Plants with similar water and feeding needs are easier to care for together. Keep thirsty fruiting crops such as tomatoes, squash and cucumbers in one area, and drought-tolerant herbs such as rosemary and thyme in another.

Mix plant families

Large blocks of a single crop family make it easy for pests and diseases to spread. Mixing crops within beds, and adding small-flowered plants such as sweet alyssum or flowering dill, supports beneficial insects. Rotating plant families to different beds each year breaks pest and disease cycles.

Plan for the whole season

A bed does not have to grow just one crop a year. Spring peas or lettuce can be followed by summer beans, and then by fall greens. Fast crops such as radishes can fill gaps around slow ones such as broccoli. Planning these successions from the start keeps every square productive.

Start small

For a first garden, one or two 4-by-8-foot beds are plenty. A small garden you can keep weeded and watered produces far more than a large one that gets away from you. Our list of the 10 easiest vegetables for first-time gardeners includes a starter plan for a single bed.

How much space does each crop need?

The planners handle this automatically, but it helps to know the general pattern:

For row gardens rather than beds, the garden row calculator works out plants per row.

About saved plans

Plans are stored in your browser’s local storage on this device. That keeps them private and means there is no account to create. It also means a few things to keep in mind:

• Plans do not move between devices or browsers. A plan made on your laptop will not appear on your phone.
• Clearing your browser data, or using a private browsing window, removes saved plans.
• Each planner keeps one current plan. To keep several versions, print each one before starting the next.

The panel at the top of this page lists the plans currently saved in this browser, and lets you delete any you no longer need.

From plan to planting

Once your plan is ready, a few tools turn it into action. Work out the soil for new beds with the raised bed soil calculator. Budget the project with the garden cost estimator. Time your sowing with the seed starting calculator, and work out seed quantities with the seed quantity calculator. Then print your plan and take it into the garden.

Planning for different kinds of gardens

A small city yard

In a small yard, every square foot counts. One or two raised beds in the sunniest spot, a trellis to grow climbers upward, and containers on a patio can produce a surprising amount. Use the raised bed planner for the beds and the container planner for the pots, and favor compact, high-value crops such as salad greens, herbs, cherry tomatoes and peppers.

A suburban backyard

With more space, a set of beds with paths between them, or an in-ground plot, makes sense. Start with the layout generator to see how many beds fit, then adjust in the vegetable garden planner. Plan a spot for a compost bin, a water source close by, and room to expand later.

A community garden plot

Community plots are often a fixed size, such as 10 by 10 or 10 by 20 feet, and sometimes have rules about tall crops or structures that shade neighbors. Plan the plot in the vegetable garden planner, keep tall crops where they will not shade the next plot, and make the most of quick successions, because you may not visit every day.

A balcony or patio

Use the container planner to match pot sizes to crops, check that your balcony gets enough sun, and plan for daily watering in summer. Railing planters and hanging baskets add growing space without taking floor area.

A year of planning

• Winter: review last year’s plan and notes, rotate crop families to new spots, choose crops and order seeds.
• Early spring: finalize the plan, prepare beds, and mark out the grid for planting.
• Late spring and summer: update the plan as you replant squares with successions.
• Fall: print the final version, note what worked, and keep it for next year’s rotation.

Planning mistakes to avoid

• Planning more garden than you can tend. Weeding and watering time grow with garden size.
• Ignoring shade. Check the sun in summer, when trees are in leaf.
• Crowding big crops. Tomatoes and squash grow much larger than their seedlings suggest.
• Forgetting paths and water. Every bed needs easy access and a way to water it.
• Planting everything at once. Successions give a steadier harvest than one big planting day.

Using the planners together

The planners are designed to hand off to one another. A typical first-season workflow looks like this:

1. Draft: open the garden layout generator, enter your space, and tick the crops you want. It fits the beds and divides the space.
2. Refine: send the first bed to the raised bed planner and repaint squares to give more room to favorites and less to crops you only need a little of.
3. Time it: map the whole plot, paths included, in the vegetable garden planner with your frost date, so every crop shows its planting window.
4. Add pots: plan herbs and extra tomatoes for the patio in the container garden planner.
5. Print and shop: print each plan, then turn it into a materials list.

Each planner keeps its own saved plan, so you can move between them without losing work. The saved-plans panel at the top of this page shows everything in one place.

Frequently asked questions