A beginner's 4x4 square-foot garden

Four feet by four feet is the size most people should start with. You can reach the middle from any side without stepping on the soil, it needs about one bag of compost a season, and sixteen squares is enough to matter at dinner without becoming a second job.

The arrangement is doing one specific thing: the two tallest plants sit along the north edge. Tomatoes will be five feet tall by July, and anything planted north of them spends the summer in shade. Everything else steps down in height as you move south.

The layout

North is the top row. Each square is one foot.

A beginner's 4x4 square-foot garden: a 4 foot by 4 foot bed, north row first, one plant per square foot.
Tomato (north-west corner)	Tomato	Basil	Basil
Lettuce	Lettuce	Carrot	Carrot
Radish	Radish	Carrot	Carrot
Marigold	Marigold	Lettuce	Lettuce

Open this plan in the Garden Designer →

It opens with the bed already laid out. Free, no account, nothing to install. Change anything you like: the designer will flag bad neighbours as you move plants and work out sowing dates for your own zone.

What's in it

Tomato1 per square foot · 70 days to harvest · zones 3–11
Basil4 per square foot · 60 days to harvest · zones 3–11
Lettuce4 per square foot · 45 days to harvest · zones 2–10
Carrot16 per square foot · 70 days to harvest · zones 2–10
Radish16 per square foot · 25 days to harvest · zones 2–10
Marigold4 per square foot · 50 days to bloom · zones 2–11

Why these sit next to each other

Tomato and Basil: Widely reputed to improve tomato flavor and repel pests, but a multi-year, garden-scale controlled trial found no consistent taste preference in blind tests, and no evidence basil reduced pest pressure — treat this as one of companion planting's least-supported popular claims.
Tomato and Marigold: UF/IFAS Extension confirms French marigold is effective against a wide range of root-knot nematode species — a real, documented effect, not folklore. The insect-pest-deterrent half of this claim is less well documented.
Tomato and Carrot: Loosens soil for tomato roots without competing for space above ground.
Lettuce and Carrot: Shallow lettuce roots don't compete with deep carrot roots.
Lettuce and Radish: Radish matures fast and breaks up soil for lettuce.

Companion planting is a mix of well-evidenced effects and garden tradition. We say which is which on each plant profile rather than presenting all of it as settled.

How to work this bed

The two tomato squares are the whole bed's summer. Cage or stake them the day you transplant, not in July when they've already sprawled.
Radishes are done in about a month. Pull them and re-sow the same squares with more lettuce, or with beans once the soil is warm.
Lettuce bolts once it's hot. The two southern squares are the ones to re-sow in late summer for a fall cutting.

Timing it for where you live

Nothing above says when, because that depends entirely on your hardiness zone. Open the plan in the designer and it produces a week-by-week schedule for your own zone, or look the crops up individually on the planting calendar.

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A first raised bed that fits sixteen squares: two tomatoes, salad, roots and a companion flower, arranged so the tall plants don't shade the short ones.

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