At least 1 m²11 ft². If your bed is smaller, the planner grays this plant team out, says why, and offers the nearest adaptation that fits. It never swaps in something else without telling you.
What it looks like planted
5 × Dill
5 × Onion
5 × Carrot
The real placement on an example 4 ft bed, the same layout the planner draws.
Between seasons
Nothing is left living in the bed over winter; the whole planting is re-established.
What it claims
Alliums interplanted with carrots reduce carrot rust fly damage
How it works: The carrot rust fly finds its host by the smell of carrot foliage. Onion and other allium volatiles growing among the carrots mask that scent, so fewer flies locate the row to lay eggs. Because the protection is the smell, it lasts only while the alliums are in the ground. Once they are pulled, the masking goes with them.
Evidence: checked against 1 source in the research-based literature.
If you skip this, you lose real yield. The planner warns you.
How it works: Soilborne inoculum and overwintering pest stages disperse across the bed. A plant team dominated by one family forecloses that ground for that family's rotation interval.
Evidence: checked against 2 sources in the research-based literature.
Remedy
Rotate the whole bed the plant team occupied, including rows that family never grew in.
If you skip this, the planting fails. The planner won’t allow it.
How it works: Bulbing fires when daylength crosses a cultivar's critical threshold (short ~10-12h, intermediate ~12-14h, long ~14-16h). A short-day cultivar grown too far from the equator crosses its low threshold early and bulbs prematurely on small plants, so bulbs stay small. A long-day cultivar grown too close to it never reaches its high threshold and fails to bulb. Changeover is around the 35th-38th parallel, north or south.
Evidence: checked against 2 sources in the research-based literature.
… onions will not form bulbs until daylength reaches the cultivar's critical threshold. Short-day onions bulb at approximately 10-12 hours of daylength ... Intermediate-day onions bulb at approximately 12-14 hours ... Long-day onions bulb at 14-16 hours of daylength.
Long day varieties are for northern growing areas (above the 35th latitude); short-day varieties are for southern. If short-day varieties are grown in our zone, they won't do well. They will not form bulbs of any decent size. And since the long day onions need more daylight, they will not do well
Remedy
Choose long-day onions far from the equator and short-day near it; the planner picks the group from your plot's latitude.
