Grow Your Own Supermarket in a Raised Bed - The Practical Planter (2024)

Rather than heading to the fridge to grab a couple of zucchini for your soup recipe, imagine strolling to your patio and picking them from your raised bed supermarket garden.

You can go about this in several ways. It all depends on the number of raised beds you have and which fruits and vegetables you want to plant.

Then, you can create a rough layout of where and when each crop will be planted.

Read on as I get into more details about how you can grow a supermarket in raised beds.

Planning Your Supermarket Garden

Creating a medley of fruits and vegetables in my raised bed garden has fed my family and me for years! It’s one of the best decisions you can make on your journey towards a farm-to-table lifestyle.

Cultivating this supermarket is no easy task. It’ll take some time to get a large variety. Here’s how you can start.

Step 1: Start Small

Rather than plant everything at once, you can start with a single crop first. This should be a fruit or vegetable your family typically consumes, such as tomatoes or carrots.

After a week, you can plant other companion vegetables around the main patch. For instance, if you’re growing tomatoes, you can grow basil next to it.

You wouldn’t want to grow cabbages, corn, or dill next to your tomatoes.

Overall, I’d suggest planning a layout for each raised bed and allocating companion vegetables in each one.

One raised bed can include potatoes, radishes, spinach, and onions, while the other contains zucchini, garlic, and peas.

Step 2: Choosing the Fruits and Vegetables

You can now expand your assortment of crops into a full-fledged garden kitchen. To start, create a list of fruits and vegetables you and your family regularly consume.

You wouldn’t want to have a whole batch of spinach and have your kids turn up their noses at it. If my experience is anything to go by, I usually grow the basics, like onions, garlic, potatoes, carrots, and peas.

These types of vegetables are perfect for storage and eating all year round.

Tip: Practice Companion Planting

When drafting your list of fruits, vegetables, and herbs, don’t forget to consider their companions.
In other words, you need to group your crops according to their best companions to allow for the best growth. For example, if you’re growing kale, plant vegetables from the onion family.

On the other hand, you might be a family of broccoli eaters. In this case, a raised bed of celery, potatoes, and lettuce will complement the cruciferous vegetable well.

Step 3: Plan for Quantity

After deciding which fruits, vegetables, and herbs you want to plant, it’s time to decide how much of each you want to plant.

That primarily depends on the number of raised beds you have. Four is optimal for creating a large variety of crops.

Tip: Consider Succession Planting

While raised beds maximize your gardening space, succession planting takes it to another level. The practice involves planting a crop in the same space as the other.

For example, while harvesting a spring plant, you can plant a summer plant in the same spot so it’ll grow right after it.

Step 4: Plan the Layout

You can choose between multiple layouts for your new kitchen garden. Some gardeners like to go with an option called the “thrillers, spillers, and fillers” design.

In this case, the thrillers would be the crops grown on trellises in the raised beds. They’re usually the vining plants, like cucumbers.

Meanwhile, spillers are the plants growing off near the edge of the raised beds, while the fillers are any remaining vegetation in the middle.

Besides this type of layout, you can choose other options, like:

Narrow Beds

A narrow raised bed bordering your home is perfect if you don’t have much garden space. You can plant up to three rows.

In the first row, you can plant small variations like herbs. Meanwhile, the second can hold medium-sized plants, like beans, carrots, cabbage, and radishes.

Lastly, you can plant larger plants in the third row like potatoes, corn, and horseradish.

Formal Potager

A formal potager offers a more eloquent raised bed layout fit for large garden spaces. It can consist of four raised beds organized in a grid with pathways between each one.

In the center, landscape designers often place statues or structures as focal points. This type of layout gives you a larger variety to work with.

Final Thoughts

Growing a supermarket in a raised bed requires patience and several considerations.

It takes planning the crop quantity, learning which plants complement one another, and choosing the best raised bed layout for your garden space.

Nevertheless, it’ll be all worth it once you get to walk outside on a warm, sunny day picking out strawberries for your shortcake recipe!