What size should I make my soil-beds?
- Where should I locate my garden?
- What size should I make my soil-beds?
- How should I arrange my soil-beds?
- What should I plant?
- When should I plant?
- What tools will I need?
- How much time will it take?
The standard Mittleider soil-bed is 30 feet long. Each bed holds two rows of plants at the base of two ridges of soil. The ridges are 18 inches apart. Aisles between beds are 3 ½ feet with 5 feet at the ends of the soil-beds. 
Why 30 feet long?
Since many gardens can readily accommodate 30-foot seed beds, the specific measurements for applying the optimum amount of fertilizer are based on this length.
Tips
For smaller gardens, adjust your soil-beds to half or a third the length (15 or 10 feet); then adjust the fertilizer measurements in like manner.
Why 18 inches wide with ridges?
- The ridges take the chore out of controlling weeds (to be explained in Weeding).
- A 12" wide flat area between the ridges allows growing space between the two rows of plants.
- The flattened center area is designed to carry water and fertilizer to the plant (to be explained in Watering and Fertilizing).
- The ridges help you to determine where the seedlings or seeds are to be placed (to be explained in Planting).
Why such wide spacing--18 inch beds, 3 ½ foot aisles, and 5 foot end spaces?
- "Conventional" gardening puts one row of plants every 30 inches—thus two rows of plants take 5 feet. Dr. Mittleider puts the two rows of plants closer to reduce watering, feeding, and weeding by 50%.
- If the space in the aisles between beds is restricted, the result will be poor inspection of the crops. This sets the stage for problems with weed control, adequate watering, disease and insect problems, harvesting on time, etc.
- With adequate space, leaves and vines have sufficient room to spread in the aisles for maximum light, essential for best growth.
- Wide aisles prevent foot traffic from damaging plants.
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Tip of the Day
It's Fall and time to prepare your soil for winter! For those of you in the Northern hemisphere who have winters, October, November, and and early December are the time you need to be cleaning up your garden and preparing it for next spring's planting. You can even plant hardy garlic, which will overvegetable crops such as radishes, peas, cabbage and broccoli.
The freeze/tha-winter and get an early spring start. Before snow covers your garden mae sure all old materials are either removed from the garden, or if they are clean of weed seeds and disease, till them into your soil-beds. Also, when it's not too muddy, go in and give everything a good weeding with the 2-way hoe (see Tools). Weeding thoroughly in the Fall helps keep the weeds from getting a big head start on you before you can get into the garden in the spring, and is very important.
If you grew a Mittleider garden this year, your beds will benefit from tilling or digging. You can apply Pre-Plant and Weekly Feed to the bed area now, then till them in, or wait until early spring. Either way after tilling place strings on your stakes, and re-make the beds.
Be sure to re-check the level of each bed accurately, since they may have changed a little. Do not be satisfied with anything more than 1" fall in a 30'-long soil-bed. Good Gardening!
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