Just one small bed can contain up to 12 different, easy-to-grow crops, and the best part is, we can be enjoying the first harvests in a matter of weeks – for minimal effort!
One Bed For All Your Vegetables
A raised bed will make tending your plants a cinch, because there’s less bending needed and few opportunities for weeds to creep in from ground level. For ultimate simplicity you can use a raised bed kit, which should come pre-drilled and with everything you need – screws ‘n’ all – but you can also make one from offcuts of wood very easily indeed.
Make sure to use wood that’s been pressure-treated with a non-toxic, food-safe preservative. That’s important, because some preservatives, especially on older timber, contain all sorts of suspect chemicals such as arsenic – and believe me we don’t want that in our food!
My bed is square and 4ft (1.2m) in width. This width makes it easy to reach in and weed and harvest from any side without having to step on the soil. To start, screw the side planks onto corner posts, which will help to add stability to the bed. A deeper bed will be easier on the back, with less bending, and it can look really stunning too.
![Raised bed]()
Build your bed on the level
You can set up your beds directly onto lawn or another area of soil. You can even put it straight onto a hard surface such as a terrace or patio, though for that I’d probably line it with a porous weed fabric to prevent the soil from washing out at the bottom and making a mess.
Choose a nice flat area of ground to give a level surface to plant into, or if you need to you can dig the bed partially into a slope. Keeping it level is important because it means that water won’t just wash off the surface before it has time to sink in. Another important consideration is that your growing area will need plenty of sun – ideally eight hours or so in the summer in most regions.
To fill the bed you’ll need topsoil mixed with plenty of compost or potting mix so that it’s rich in organic matter that will help crops thrive. If you have a deep raised bed you can save on pricey soil mixes by filling the very bottom of the bed with old logs and prunings, which will gradually rot down and help improve the soil. Finally, sprinkle on some organic, all-purpose fertiliser. Rake it all level ready for planting.
![Young plants ready for planting]()
Start crops from seed or, for simplicity, purchase young plants from the garden center
Easy Vegetables For a Small Garden Bed
For me the next step – planting it all up – is the very best part of starting off any garden bed! Most crops can be sown directly where they’re to grow, but to speed things along you can use young plants that you’ve either grown from seed indoors, or purchased as ready-to-plant vegetable seedlings. Purchased plants offer an easy way to get a head start and take a step closer to cropping success while missing out the more delicate seed-sowing stage.
I’d suggest planting lettuce,, spinach, radishes and salad onions for fresh salads, shallots or onions and garlic for lifting and storing, some super-nutritious broccoli, herbs for regular picking, tempting eat-straight-from-the-pod peas, crunchy carrots, and a few strawberry plants for something sweet. Place your plants on the soil surface first, still in their pots, to get a good overview of the layout before committing just in case you change your mind.
Planting’s very straightforward. Gently squeeze the sides of the pot or plug, then carefully ease the young plant into your hand. Make a small hole in the soil with a trowel or dibber, and pop in your plant. Backfill the soil around it and firm it in to make sure it’s secure in its new home. Give everything a water at the end, once you’re done planting.
![Ben planting up his garden bed]()
Position your plants to make sure you're happy with the layout before planting
Planting Tips
Ideally, we want to minimise crops shading each other, so start by placing the taller crops – the summer-heading broccoli and peas – towards the back of the bed, furthest away from the midday sun. Leave about a foot (30cm) between each broccoli plant. If they begin to flop over you can tie them to a stake, but normally they shouldn’t need any support.
Early or dwarf peas only grow to about 2ft (60cm), but they will still need some support to help keep them up off the ground. You can use twiggy sticks, known as pea sticks, to do this. Peas won’t need any care other than regular watering to prime the pods to come thick and fast in about two months’ time.
Next up, onion-family crops (alliums). Garlic and shallots are a good choice, with shallots being similar to onions but a tad daintier, making better use of this relatively tight space. Salad onions are a good space-saving choice for that fresh oniony hit.
Now some annual herbs: coriander and parsley. You can start these from seed indoors, but parsley takes a long time to germinate so, for faster results, buy a pot of living herbs from the grocery store. Each pot actually contains a cluster of small plants, and if you leave them all together like this the plants will remain congested and won’t thrive. But if we simply split the clump apart into four or five separate sections and plant them, they’ll have a much better chance of growing well and producing lots of lovely leaves to harvest.
![Ben with his planted garden bed]()
Who would have imagined so many crops could fit in such as small space?
In front of your herbs, sow some carrot seeds. Carrots don’t really transplant very well and are just easier to sow directly where they’re going to grow. Excavate two shallow drills (rows) in the soil a little under a half inch (1cm) deep and about 6in (15cm) apart. Sprinkle some seeds thinly along the base of your drills. Once the seedlings pop up, remove excess plants to leave each one at least one inch (3cm) apart. You can begin harvesting them quite young as ‘baby’ carrots, allowing the remainder to grow on for bigger roots.
For salads, plant radishes, loose-leaf lettuce, and spinach. Loose-leaf lettuce and spinach are great because you can harvest just a few leaves at a time from each plant, without having to pull up the whole thing in one go. This gives the plants time to recover and grow on to produce more leaves, which means you can keep them cropping for longer.
No garden would be complete without at least a couple of strawberry plants! Pop them at the edge of the bed so they can grow and flop over the edges, where they’ll dangle their fruits temptingly from the sides. Strawberries are often susceptible to slugs, but with the bed raised up off the ground they will probably go unnoticed. You can always set beer traps at the base of the bed to intercept those slimy little monsters before they get anywhere near your crops.
![Ben's garden bed plan]()
Ben's plan packs a lot into one small bed
Plan Ahead
If the weather is still a bit cold, cover plants with a sheet of clear polythene supported on hoops, or drape a couple of layers of horticultural fleece over your plants.
As one crop finishes, ideally, have another ready to go in to make the most productive use of your space. Our Garden Planner can help with that, as the Plant List that accompanies any plan will show you when you can expect to sow, plant and harvest so you can work out what crops can follow on. For example, I know that in my garden I’ll be able to follow early-cropping plants like salads or peas with a few warm-season staples such as bush beans, tomatoes or cucumbers, which will be good to plant once the earlier crop is finished.
The plan for this bed is shown above – neat and perfectly formed I reckon! If you’d like to try the Garden Planner for yourself, you can take out a 7 day trial. It’s completely free and you won’t have to share any payment details.
