How to Plant a Compact Vegetable Garden
What makes this compact garden so productive is that you will be placing plants close together in squares instead of traditional rows. You can continue to plant as you harvest.
What You’ll Need
- Hammer
- Saw
- Shovel
- Wire cutters
- Tape measure
- 4 4-foot 2-by-10’s
- 16d galvanized nails
- 2 6-foot 2-by-4’s
- 4-foot 2-by-4
- 49 feet of 12-gauge galvanized wire, cut into 7 7-foot lengths
- 8d galvanized nails
- About 1/2 cubic yard or 14 cubic feet of good garden soil
- A sunny spot for your garden
What You’ll Do
Frame
1. Using the 2-by-10’s and 16d nails, hammer together a 4-foot square.
Trellis
2. Nail the 6-foot 2-by-4’s to the back of the frame.
3. Nail the 4-foot 2-by-4 across the back of the uprights.
4. Attach the 7 wires on the back of the trellis by wrapping wires around nails.
Planting
Fill the frame with good garden soil. Divide it into 16 squares. The smaller the mature plant, the more you can plant in each square.
A Helpful Garden
Nail 5/8-inch or heavier exterior plywood to the bottom of the frame and lift the frame to table height by placing it on sturdy saw horses or legs. Once filled with soil, it will be easily accessible to a person in a wheelchair or someone who is more comfortable sitting than kneeling.
For a boy scout project I think its a great learning tool. I also think its a great starter plan that can be built on.
if you nail a piece of plywood on the bottom (to be able to raise it up… won’t you have drainage issues?
I used some old plastic shelving to raise my garden box up. It was the dark gray utility type shelving that has holes already in it. It worked perfectly. The garden produced great veggies all summer long. The plywood underneath does work also. The excess water finds its way out around the edges of the box. I know someone that has one like that going this year and it’s been successful so far.
Wouldn’t pressure treated woods leach into the soil when it rains?
Why can’t you use pressure treated for the side boards?
Excellent idea….going to do this spring….thank you
The idea is nice, but the plants that they mention to grow….you need more space. A tomato plant next to all the others? Unless you’re going to constantly trim it back, its not going to work.
It’s true, the tomatoes would normally need more space, but when you grow them up the twine trellis you prune any suckers and just grow a single stem up the twine. The plant takes up very little space this way.
If you ever find yellow leaves or dead leaves and all the rest is green it could and very well be a disease so pick the leaves off so it doesn’t spread.
The trellis, as long as directions are followed, shouldn’t need extra support. The taller the trellis, the more support it will need.
You could line the bottom with a tarp but to help with wood rot, try pressure treated boards.
DO NOT USE PRESSURE TREATED BOARDS!!!! They are treated with a chemical that is poisonous to humans, it could leech into your soil/water and get into your plants I repeat DO NOT use pressure treated wood anywhere near your garden.
I going to try this.
Does the trellis need extra support?
how days will it take to start getting tomatos after planting
Could u line the bottom with a tarp to help protect the wood from rotting or would that bleed chemicals into the soil?
a tarp would not allow for good drainage, and may speed up rotting. I would use weed block on the bottom to prevent weeds and place on the ground in a sunny spot.
you could drill holes in the plywood ‘floor’, but i would reinforce it with a couple of cross beams on the bottom