Planning Vegetable Garden

This page is about planning vegetable garden in a three tier planter.

The planter I have designed is one that is six feet by six feet. This is because my maximum reach is three feet. The planter is excellent if you are tight on space. It gives the advantage of getting a lot in a tiny space.

This one I am planning will be for my Fall crop since it is too late for the Spring (2009) crop here in San Antonio, Texas.

My design is going to call for using landscape timbers but you can use decorative stone as well. It will cost a lot more but it will look really great.

To start with, find as flat a space as possible. Then lay down some clothes or landscape materials. This will keep weeds from growing up but will allow water to soak through.

When planning vegetable garden, leveling a spot and laying down the landscape plastic, go ahead and make it an area that is seven feet by seven feet.

Next mark and cut two landscape timbers to six feet and two more that are six feet eight inches. Lay them down with the six footers inside the six feet, eight inches.

Lay these down and level and square them up. Next lay down your next level of timbers, over lapping the extra four inches. Do this all the way around for four rows high. Then cut off the overhanging timber.

Use 8" spikes to hold the landscape timbers together.

Do this same procedure for the middle tier. Only cut the boards to four feet and four feet, four inches, respectively. Make this tier six timbers high.

Next cut the timbers for the two feet and two feet, four inches respectively. Make this tier eight timbers high.

The actual height will depend upon the type of landscape timber you use since not all are the same size.

This will take about twenty-four timbers depending on how well you measure and cut.

Once you have the boards all assembled together, then you are ready to add the dirt/compost/mulch mixture.

But first you may want to add some two inch PVC pipe when planning vegetable garden so you can put a water source in the middle to add a sprinkler or water fountain later to water the garden.

You may also want to add a PVC frame in order to put a cover on this at a later date. This would give you a miniature green house of sorts.

Now you have to figure out how much dirt mixture you will need. You will need to add some fine mulch to keep the dirt/compost from compacting. I have noticed that my store-bought dirt has compacted together.

You can visit my soil page to figure out how much soil you will need for your planter. This is if you plan on ordering dirt in a truck to be delivered to your home since these dealers deal in cubic yards.

The formula is length in feet x length in width x depth in inches, divided by 324.

The first tier is six feet by six feet x 12" deep. For the first tier we will need one point five cubic yards.

The next tier is four feet x four feet and is 20" deep. For this inner tier we will need about one cubic yard.

The inner tier is two feet x two feet and is 28" deep. For this tier we would need about one-half cubic yard.

In all we would need three cubic yards.

length × width × height

We would need about 80 bags of our mixture.

If you need extra help, there are many calculators on the internet that can do this for you.

We have completed our tier and it is filled with dirt.

I estimate the cost for this to be about $360.00.

Now the fun part comes next. What to plant?

I am thinking about planting root crops like beets, carrots, onions, turnips and radishes.

I can plant these in any sort of pattern I like.

Or this would even make a good herb garden.

Thank you for your visit.

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