A planted bed keeps every plant within arm's reach of a path, edge, or walkable row.
Promising A person has checked it against its sources. If you skip this, it still grows, just less well. The planner suggests it.
How it works
You can comfortably reach about 2 feet (0.6 m) into a bed. Soil farther than that from a path or edge can only be tended by stepping on it, which packs it down. So a bed worked from its edges and wider than about 4 feet (1.2 m) is laid out as planting strips no wider than 4 feet, with paths about 20 inches (0.5 m) between them. A field is worked from rows you walk, about 2.5 feet (0.75 m) apart. Raised beds, in-ground beds and containers are worked from their edges; a field is walked.
The evidence
Evidence: checked against 2 sources in the research-based literature.
The 2 sources
Beds accessible on both sides can be 3 to 4 feet wide
… the reach of your arm is generally a good metric ... If you can access both sides, the bed can be up to five feet wide.
Plus 2 working notes on how the sources were read. Every note is in the data download.
Read next
- Choosing a field, an in-ground bed, a raised bed or a containerThe four ways to hold a garden, what each one costs and buys, and how to pick the one that fits your yard, your soil, and how much work you want.
- How to build a raised garden bedHow wide, how long, how deep, and what to build it from. Width is the one dimension that matters, the rest is up to you, and here's how to fill it without wasting money.
- What is a milpa? The fuller system behind the Three SistersThe Three Sisters is the famous three-crop version; the milpa it comes from is a whole interplanted field. What the milpa adds, what it looks like planted, and how to grow a piece of one.
How this rule has changed
Every change is dated, newest first. The full record, with each reason, is in the data download.
- Wording made clearer
- Wording made clearer
- Sources updated
- A person read the sources and confirmed it
- Details updated
- Added to the rules
More ways Milpa can help
When do I plant? · What grows well together? · Plan my garden · What can I plant now? · Something wrong in the garden? · Keep a garden diary · Heard a tip?
Cite this page
Milpa Gardens. “A planted bed keeps every plant within arm's reach of a path, edge, or walkable row.” Evidence grade: Promising. https://milpa.garden/rules/planted-bed-keeps-plant-within-arm-s/
A garden planner built on graded evidence. Every claim states its evidence grade and links its sources on the page. Cite it with the grade, and add the date you read it.
Report a problem with this claim
How we grade evidence
- Well established
- The rule names its mechanism and is settled, by sources a person has read and checked or by plain arithmetic and geometry.
- Promising
- The mechanism is named and the literature backs it. A few questions are still open.
- A good hunch
- Plausible by its mechanism, but field studies are thin, so treat it as a lean.
- Contested
- The evidence points both ways, or no study has tested it, so the planner does not enforce it.
- Refuted
- The claim did not survive its sources. It is kept so the folklore can be answered.