Help with raised garden layout

I am working on layout out my raised beds for the year and am looking for any advice anyone would be willing to share. Attached is the layout of my gardens. They lay from east to west. They are on the south side of my house and pretty much receive full day sun in the summer. On the smaller bed, I have built trellises and grew green beans and cucumbers on them last year. The big 3.5 x 12 foot bed is new this year. Anyway, I am planning on doing maybe some sort of squash and green beans on the trellises again. Against the wall of the house, I will probably do a few tomato plants paired with some companion herbs or smaller veggies. As for the big bed, I am open to suggestions. Of course we want to try to do the usual veggies (peppers, onions, radishes, herbs, etc.). If anyone has any better ideas that what I have written above, please let me know and I welcome any other layout suggestions. Thanks in advance!

I found this diagram on the internet. Maybe it will give you some ideas?

http://homestead.tateeskew.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/garden_diagram_smaller.jpg

I have found that if I put down black plastic, before I make my raised beds, there are no weeds to till. And working around the plants is clean & enjoyable.

indykv, 3 1/2 feet is a very long way to try to work across. For beds accessible from both sides, 4 1/2 is the widest I make. Otherwise I wind up having to get into the bed to tend things.

You might consider a layout of three 3 1/2 x 4 beds 2 ft apart along the house and a long one parallel to the house. Another choice might be three 3.5 x 9 beds 2 ft apart perpendicular to the house (just plant the taller stuff near the house).

This message was edited Apr 30, 2010 7:48 AM

The standard of four foot across beds has the assumption that you can reach fully across on both sides so you could probably widen the big bed away from the house. I won't say you should shrink the ones by the house, but you do want to be able to reach all the way to the other side pretty easily. To me, these beds look pretty good.

How good is the water access? That's the only potential problem I can come up with. If everything can be reached with the hose pretty easily, then that's that, go for it.

Thanks for all the responses! This is actually the second year for the beds, so I am stuck with the layout that I have. It is a bit of a reach across the beds that are next to the house, but I grew the tomatoes against the house last year in the big bed, so as they grew, I didn't really have that far of a reach and it worked out fine. In the smaller beds, I have trellises built on the east and west sides of the bed, so we are actually just picking off vines and can access the vines from either side easily. The water access is just next to the beds to the right (east), so it is very close and convenient. So my plan still is to grow the tomatoes against the house in the big bed and smaller stuff or some good companion plants in front of that. Probably pole beans on one of the trellises. Maybe a cantaloupe on the other (never done those before)??? I'd like to get some squash in, but I know those plants end up being huge. Anyway, the layout is still a work in progress, but I am getting ready to plant soon. Thanks again.

Eight Ball Zucchini - Hybrid - requires a spacing of only 18" apart. My husband and I throw the little round green squash into our grill pan on the BBQ along with grape tomatoes and sliced peppers, garlic and red onion, bathed in olive oil. I love that they are so small and flavorfull with few seeds. This might help conserve space in your beds. You are going to have fantastic results with your raised beds!

We're doing something similar, but don't have quite as much space. Here's one link I found helpful, but if only they would come out and do the work for us!!!

http://www.oldhouseweb.com/gardening/Detailed/751.shtml