I use 25-foot long wide rows and I like them. You can use 25-foot soaker hoses, or 50-footers looped at the end of very wide rows. Mine are permanent beds with mulched pathways between the beds, and grassy corridors around the edges, which I mow for clippings/mulch.

Most of the beds are 28 inches wide, but a couple are 36 inches. Like yours, mine is an intensive family food garden. With some crops like potatoes and sweet corn I'll fill up entire rows; I keep garlic/onions, beans/peas, squash/cucurbits and tomatoes/peppers together for rotation purposes. When grouped that way they fill in entire rows, too. In the front row, I like mixing herbs, veggies and cherry tomatoes.

You might use the free trial at GrowVeg.com to play around with plans.

My understanding on the benefit of having shorter beds is for crop rotation purposes. If your tomatoes are decimated by disease, you don't want to plant tomatoes there next year. But it's hard to remember where the tomatoes were planted last year if there's no clear dividing line.

If you layout your garden in rectangular beds like 5'x25' you will have much more growing soace than with rows. For every row you need a walkpath, so if you are doing rows, around half your garden is devoted to walkpaths. Not only are you not getting macimum production using rows, you are walking on much mpre area in the garden, conpacting soil. Whereas, garden beds(think 5'x25') only has a walk path on the perimeter of the beds, instead of having another two or three walkpaths right in the middle of that bed if you are using rows. You understand, am I making sense? I would go with beds instead of rows, you get more gardenspace and you arent walking on most your garden.

Grove, I agree with planatus.

I am a row gardener. I have plenty of space and the equipment to work it though.

My Dad always planted north to south which made 200' rows. I started planting east to west shortening the rows to 75'. Then I realized I didn't need 75' rows and reduced the size to 50' rows.

It is easier to manage the shorter rows and rotate crops. I get better production and I have started planting cover crops on the leftover end of the garden. Then I move to the other side the next year or so.

I hope this makes sense and helps! It might not be too clear since I am on some meds for a virus and feel kinda woozy!

In any case, the more walk rows, the less plant space/production. I have beds 5'x75' and 2-3' walk rows between the rows. Whereas, traditional row gardens have around 1-2' beds and 2-3' walk rows, you can cleary see how it waste space, nearly half your space.

You may want to consult the book Gardening for Geeks. There's a nice chapter on spacing garden beds.

The author recommends that beds should be no wider than 4 feet so you can reach across the bed without stepping on it. However, you can get away with 5 feet if you put a stepping stone in the middle of the bed. If you have children, the children's beds should be 2-3 feet wide so they can reach across it.

As far as spacing between rows, the author recommends 2 feet. However, you can get away with 1 foot if you're OK with not being able to kneel next to the bed.

I am 5ft 5in tall and anything wider than 4ft is difficult to work in for me. And my beds are raised and I can access them from all sides with paths. If mine were wider than 4ft, then I might have to actually get into the bed to work in the middle of it. Which would compact the soil. This way I never step foot in my growing spaces.

A 2ft pathway is not as comfortable to use for me, because I have raised beds and I'd be bumping into them. Also not easy to bring a wheelbarrow down.

Great responses, thank you all so much! It sounds like wide rows are the most commonly recommended option in order to minimize the lost path space.

is it recommended to lay down mulch over the pathways? I like wood chips, but i don't think i can till that into the soil in the fall.

Before spinal fusion put an end to it, my garden was 100x75 for 20+ years and I can't think of how I would have maintained it with anything but rows. The space between my rows was the width of my 1962 Merry tiller, which I still use today for odd jobs. I planted then (and still do in my raised beds) north-south with the tallest crop at the north end.
And I also don't rotate my crops. Gasp! I perfer planting cover crops, rotating those each fall. One year annual ryegrass, next year oats. I usually stick to those two because they easiest to till in during spring.

This post was edited by grannybettysue on Fri, Mar 28, 14 at 13:15

grovestead, If I'm understanding you correctly, you plan to till everything? I'm guessing a walk behind rototiller?

You don't have to till in the wood chips during the fall, just till where you planted and leave the wood chips alone. You would have kind of like permanent walkways.

I use a tractor on mine, so I turn it all under. I mulch with straw and/or mulched leaves but don't actually make pathways.

I agree with much of what's been said previously.

My Garden is 16 by forty feet. i have 8 3.5x16 foot 'beds' (just places where i don't walk on the soil). I like 3.5 foot beds because I can reach more than halfway in from either side which is convenient. 4 or 5 foot beds seemed too wide, especially for my wife and kids who will be helping.

my paths are only 15 inches wide but that is because i want to use as much space as i can for growing. if i had a bigger garden i think i would keep my beds the same width but increase my path space.

i also try to pay attention to crop rotation. i have arranged my crops so that no bed will have the same family of plants more often than every four years. so my tomatoes are four beds away from my potatoes (both are nightshades).

i think it is also worthwhile to consider the order of your crop rotation so that light feeders follow heavy feeders which follow legumes. but with plenty of compost and a bit of fertilizer this may not be so important

since i am fairly new to gardening all of this is hearsay and theory from my dad and from the reading that i have done. but so far so good.

jon

Depends what tools you have to work it with.
My beds 25ft x 7 ft. I weed with a shuffle hoe. I have 10 of these beds. I put a peice ply wood (1 ft. x 8 ft.) across them to plant.
i used to have 3 foot wide bed , To me They were alot of trouble.

I suppose it depends a lot on what i'm planting .. for example, four rows of corn could all be in the same bed. But tomatoes need ample space so a single row is fine.