A high-yield 4x8 bed for a small urban plot

Small urban plots don't have room for a crop that gives you one harvest and then sits there. This bed is built entirely from crops that either keep producing all season (peas, cucumbers, beans, chard, lettuce cut instead of pulled) or pack a lot of food into a little space (16 carrots and 4 bok choy to the square foot between them).

The north row is trellised on purpose. Peas and cucumbers climb instead of sprawl, so they add height and yield without eating into the footprint the rest of the bed needs.

The layout

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

A high-yield 4x8 bed for a small urban plot: a 8 foot by 4 foot bed, north row first, one plant per square foot.
Pea (north-west corner)	Pea	Pea	Pea	Cucumber	Cucumber	Cucumber	Cucumber
Bush Beans	Bush Beans	Bush Beans	Bush Beans	Bush Beans	Bush Beans	Bush Beans	Bush Beans
Swiss Chard	Swiss Chard	Swiss Chard	Swiss Chard	Bok Choy	Bok Choy	Bok Choy	Bok Choy
Lettuce	Lettuce	Lettuce	Lettuce	Carrot	Carrot	Carrot	Carrot

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

Pea8 per square foot · 60 days to harvest · zones 2–11
Cucumber2 per square foot · 55 days to harvest · zones 3–11
Bush Beans9 per square foot · 55 days to harvest · zones 3–11
Swiss Chard4 per square foot · 55 days to harvest · zones 3–10
Bok Choy1 per square foot · 50 days to harvest · zones 2–11
Lettuce4 per square foot · 45 days to harvest · zones 2–10
Carrot16 per square foot · 70 days to harvest · zones 2–10

Why these sit next to each other

Pea and Carrot: Peas fix nitrogen that benefits neighboring root crops.
Cucumber and Bush Beans: Beans fix nitrogen that heavy-feeding cucumbers use.
Swiss Chard and Bush Beans: Beans fix nitrogen chard uses heavily.
Bok Choy and Carrot: Non-competing root/leaf pairing.
Lettuce and Carrot: Shallow lettuce roots don't compete with deep carrot roots.

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

Put the trellis in before you plant, not after. Peas and cucumbers grab onto support as they grow, and retrofitting a trellis around established vines damages roots.
Keep picking beans, peas and cucumbers as they come ready. All three slow down or stop producing if pods or fruit are left to mature on the vine.
Cut lettuce leaves from the outside rather than pulling the whole plant, the same as the salad bed above, so that row keeps giving instead of ending in one 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 4x8 bed built around crops that keep producing rather than one-and-done crops: trellised peas and cucumbers on the north edge, beans, chard, bok choy, lettuce and carrots filling the rest.

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