Plant Spacing for Raised Beds: the Table for 25 Vegetables You'll Use Every Season

The most expensive mistake in raised-bed gardening costs nothing at the garden centre and everything at harvest time: planting too close together.

Last season a gardener from Basel told me she had planted four tomatoes in a 60×80 cm raised bed. Four tomatoes. By August the whole block was a dark, airless thicket — the plants in the middle had never received enough light, and two of them had brown rot on the fruit, moisture that had pooled in the tunnel from lack of airflow.

The tragic part: she had the best intentions. She wanted a big harvest and assumed more plants meant more food. The opposite is true.

Why plant spacing matters

Four reasons, and all four cost you yield if you ignore them:

Light competition. Plants too close together shade each other. That sounds obvious, but photosynthesis is literally energy. Less light = less sugar in the plant = smaller fruit, less of it.

Root volume. What you see above ground mirrors what happens below. A tomato plant needs 20–30 litres of soil for a healthy root system. Pack two of them into a 40-litre block and both fight for survival instead of growth.

Airflow. The most underestimated argument. Fungal diseases — powdery mildew, blight, botrytis — need moisture and stagnant air. A well-ventilated bed where leaves dry out quickly in the morning is far more resilient than a jungle where humidity lingers for hours.

Clean harvesting. You want to pick your tomatoes, not fight through walls of leaves while accidentally snapping the neighbouring plant. Planted with room to breathe, you can reach in, harvest cleanly, and actually see what's ripe.

The table: 25 raised-bed plants with exact spacings

Values are based on averages from Kreuter's bio-gardening guide, the Kosmos garden calendar, and hands-on experience. For raised beds the rule of thumb is: you can go 10–15 % tighter than open-ground recommendations, because the soil is looser and richer. But no more than that.

Plant	In-row spacing (cm)	Between rows (cm)	Plants per m²	Note
Tomato	60	70	2	Stake or trellis required
Cucumber	60	100	1–2	Climbs vertically, saves space
Courgette / Zucchini	80	100	1	Budget 0.8 m² per plant
Pumpkin	100	150	1	Huge footprint — consider spilling into next bed
Bell pepper	50	60	3–4	Warm and sheltered from wind
Aubergine / Eggplant	60	70	2	Heat is non-negotiable
Lettuce (head)	30	30	9–12	Tighten to 25 cm for cut-and-come-again
Cut lettuce	25	25	16	Succession-sow every 3 weeks
Spinach	15	25	25	Direct-sow in rows
Chard	30	40	6–8	Perennial in mild winters
Radish	5	15	60–80	Sow thinly, harvest fast
Carrot	4–5	25	100–120	Thin to 5 cm after germination
Parsnip	10	30	30	Long growing season, be patient
Kohlrabi	30	40	6	Good before main crops
Broccoli	50	60	3–4	Similar footprint to tomato
Cauliflower	60	60	2–3	Like broccoli, slightly more space
Leek	15	30	20	Plant deeply for a long white shaft
Onion	10	25	35–40	Set in spring
Garlic	15	25	25–30	Set in autumn
Pea	5	40	40	Add climbing support from 40 cm height
Bush bean	10	40	25	Direct-sow in rows
Runner bean	10	60	16	Stake or wigwam
Strawberry	30	35	8–10	Perennial — control runners
Basil	20	25	16	Perfect companion to tomatoes
Parsley	25	25	16	Perennial, frost-hardy

How to use the table in practice

Three steps, nothing more:

Step 1: measure your bed. Length × width in metres. A standard raised bed is 1.2 × 0.8 m = 0.96 m². Call it 1 m².

Step 2: plan large plants first. Tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, pumpkins — these are the space consumers. Each large plant needs roughly 0.5–1 m², depending on variety. In a 1 m² bed that means: one courgette, OR two tomatoes, OR two cucumbers (vertical). Not one courgette and two tomatoes. One large plant per 0.6–0.8 m² is the rule I give everyone.

Step 3: fill gaps with small crops. Lettuce, radishes, herbs need little space and grow happily under and beside large plants as long as they still get some light. Radishes between carrot rows is a classic: radishes are done in four weeks, the carrots need another ten. Same ground, used twice.

The five spacings worth memorising

If you only hold five numbers in your head, you're already ahead of most first-season gardeners:

• Tomato: 60 cm — between stems, not between leaves
• Cucumber: 60 cm — climbing vertically; 100 cm if sprawling on the ground
• Courgette: 80 cm — it grows wide, genuinely wide
• Lettuce: 30 cm — for head lettuce; cut lettuce can go to 25 cm
• Radish: 5 cm — in the row, with 15 cm between rows

What happens when you go tighter

I tested this. Two tomato plants at 40 cm instead of 60 cm: yield was 35 % lower than the same varieties at 60 cm spacing in the same bed. The close- planted ones had more aphids, more signs of mildew, and the fruit stayed smaller. Three extra weeks of season didn't fix it.

A rule I don't forget: if you plant two plants tighter than the table says, you cut both their yields in half. Better to put in one fewer plant and get twice as much from the others.

Succession planting: even more from the same ground

The table shows spacings for plants growing at the same time. But a raised bed can use the same patch of soil two or three times in a season. Radishes are done in four weeks. Then sow spinach. Then lamb's lettuce in autumn. The spacings stay the same — only the timing shifts.

I explain this in more detail in my beginner's guide to planting raised beds and in the post about filler plants that use every gap. Not sure which plants to grow at all? Five plants that always work is a good starting point.

The short version

Plant spacing isn't expert knowledge. It's the single most important decision you make before the season starts. The table above isn't theory — it reflects what plants actually need in root and air space to be productive.

A raised bed with the right spacings isn't half-empty. It's a bed that uses its area fully — just at different points in the season.

If you want to plan your bed without doing the maths in your head: Plan your bed for free → /en/planer/standort

Plant boldly — just not too close.

🦔 Stachi