The “Plate Method” Is Your Secret to Planning the Perfect Veggie Garden

If you’re in the beginning stages of planning out your spring garden, you’re just in time to use one of Gardenary’s Nicole Johnsey Burke’s most viral tips ever. Burke, a gardener known for sharing all sorts of tricks with her over 1.2 million followers across YouTube and Instagram, has a hack for achieving your dream garden:  Use the plate method to envision how much space you have when mapping out your gardening. 

Basically, Burke uses various sizes of plates to physically plan out how she’s going to arrange her plants before digging holes. A 12-inch plate symbolizes kale, collards, or other large, leafy greens, while an 8-inch plate represents medium-sized greens like Swiss chard or heads of lettuce. There’s a tea saucer that’s 5 inches in diameter to symbolize arugula and smaller greens, and a 2-inch saucer to represent onions, carrots, or garlic — she even pulls out a 1-inch spice shaker to represent something much smaller, like green onions. 

According to Burke, this physical representation of your plants before they’ve sprouted will allow you to map out your entire garden without any plants getting too crowded. “The magic behind the Plate Method is that it provides a sneak peek into the future,” explains Juliet Howe, founder of Twigs Design, a company specializing in container gardening.

“Even the most seasoned veggie gardeners have eyes bigger than their stomachs when faced with a rack of seed packets and a nursery full of tiny plants. Burke’s purely visual method maps out how the plants will grow, taking their round growth pattern into consideration.” 

If you’re dealing with a small gardening space, Howe recommends filling in any gaps with companion plants that don’t take up much room. “Flowers such as marigolds, petunias, and nasturtiums earn their space in your garden for their beauty and scent alone, but they also provide pest control,” she suggests, noting that herbs like mint and rosemary act in the same way.

Sarah Rubens, a certified garden coach and founder of Seed to Sanctuary, also teaches the plate method and encourages all her gardeners to utilize the strategy, whether they have an expansive landscape or window garden. “The key to success is selecting a large enough container, filling it with nutrient-rich organic soil and compost, and ensuring the plants receive six to eight hours of sunlight per day,” she says, noting that consistent watering is also key.

“One efficient method is olla irrigation, which involves burying unglazed terracotta pots (ollas) in the soil, filling them with water, and allowing moisture to slowly seep out through the porous clay walls, providing a steady and efficient water source for plants.”