Square foot gardening is the method I use at Freighter View Farms, and it is the reason a small suburban lot in Bay City produces enough food to eat fresh from June through October and enough seeds to start it all again in spring.
The idea is simple: divide raised beds into a grid of one-foot squares, plant intensively in each square, and succession-plant as you harvest. No wasted space. No empty rows. Every square foot is either growing something, resting under mulch, or about to be planted.
Why It Works in Michigan
Michigan’s Zone 6a growing season is short — roughly May to October. Square foot gardening makes every day count. The raised beds warm faster in spring, drain better in wet years, and make succession planting simple. When the radishes come out in June, the beans go in. When the beans finish in August, the fall lettuce goes in. The bed never stops working.
My Layout
The garden at Freighter View Farms runs on 4×8 raised beds, each divided into 32 squares. The beds are 10 inches deep, filled with a mix of compost, peat, and vermiculite that I amend every spring. Vertical trellises on the north end of each bed support tomatoes, cucumbers, and pole beans without shading the shorter crops.
I wrote about the vertical system in detail: Growing Vertical: Maximizing Space and Yield.
What I Plant Per Square
The spacing varies by crop. One tomato gets a full square (and usually a stake or cage). Peppers get one per square. Lettuce gets four per square. Radishes get sixteen. Carrots get sixteen. Beans get nine. This is not a guess — it is the math that makes square foot gardening productive.
Getting Started
If you are new to this method, start with one 4×4 bed. Plant tomatoes on the north side, peppers in the middle, and lettuce and herbs on the south side. Add a vertical trellis for beans or cucumbers. That single bed will teach you more about gardening than a year of reading.
For a complete planting schedule, see the Michigan Zone 6a Garden Planner. For seed starting help, see When to Start Seeds Indoors in Michigan.
— Chris Izworski, Freighter View Farms, Bay City, Michigan
Chris Izworski is a Michigan gardener, writer, and AI technologist based on Saginaw Bay. He writes at Freighter View Farms about Zone 6a gardening, seed saving, and practical AI in public safety.
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