How Big of a Garden to Feed a Family of 5
I should know better, but information technology happens every year: I start too many seeds, experience uncertain about whether or not I sowed enough, so realize I'm growing more food than my family can possibly eat.
And I don't think I'm alone in this!
My optics are much bigger than my stomach—and my garden—at the beginning of every flavour, and I inevitably end up with hundreds of seedlings that I scramble to observe room for in any patch of blank soil.
Or sometimes, on the flip side, I don't institute nearly enough of my favorite fruits and vegetables. (Especially the ones I like to snack in the field before bringing them in.)
For a while, I struggled with knowing exactly how much to plant in a vegetable garden to feed my family.
Finding that residue between having enough food to eat and preserve, while wasting as little equally possible to overripeness, frost, and the compost pile, tin can be tricky.
(I know that returning plants to the life cycle by way of composting isn't really waste matter, simply those unused vegetables notwithstanding took time, water, and other resources to grow.)
Related: 11 Vegetables You Grow That You Didn't Know You Could Eat
I had questions that every edible gardener has wondered at some indicate: How practice I know if I'm growing plenty food? What size garden does it take to feed a family unit of iv?
Over the years, I've tracked how much we abound versus how much we swallow, and I thought information technology was worth sharing these numbers with you to ease some of the pre-planting anxiety nosotros all feel when mapping out our garden beds.
The merely downside to having hard numbers to reference is that they're highly variable when it comes to a topic like this.
Factors like the size of your garden, your growing conditions, and fifty-fifty the appetites of your family unit members all influence how many plants are considered "enough."
So, use this information equally a starting signal for planning your new garden, and tailor it accordingly based on your own family's needs, preferences, and resources.
v things to consider earlier deciding how much food you need to grow
1. How big is your garden?
This is the most limiting factor when deciding how many plants to grow per person. Even if you want to grow plenty tomatoes to feed your family unit for an unabridged season, those plants take up a lot of space.
Y'all may notice yourself needing to scale back in order to provide some diversity for your meals, or y'all may make up one's mind that you'd rather abound as many tomatoes every bit you lot can and just buy other vegetables yous similar to swallow.
(A tip from my own feel: I tend to focus on growing vegetables that are expensive to purchase organic, like tomatoes and bell peppers, over less expensive produce similar potatoes and onions.)
Retrieve that garden space doesn't have to be inside the confines of a "proper" edible garden either.
You may be able to go abroad with growing salad greens in a window box, letting beans and cucumbers climb a back debate, or adding artichoke plants to your ornamental landscaping in the front yard.
By being creative with plant placements and repurposing household items (like a vintage clawfoot bathtub!) into anarchistic planters, you tin can maximize a modest infinite and produce more than food than you idea was possible.
2. What does your family like to eat?
It goes without maxim that y'all should grow the fruits and vegetables that your family likes to eat, and plant simply one or two of each variety that you want to try.
Be honest and realistic about what your typical meals wait like, and how much time you actually take to use or cook what you lot grow. It's all too easy to get dazzled by the incredible selection of seeds you detect in seed catalogs. (Yep, been at that place.)
If rhubarb is something you only use for the occasional pie or cobbler, you lot might be better off just buying it.
If green smoothies are a regular part of your forenoon routine, you might desire to abound more spinach and carrots than suggested.
And if y'all admittedly beloved beets, y'all could succession establish 5 to 10 plants per person every couple of weeks, instead of a single crop all at once.
3. How onetime is each person in your family? What is that person's lifestyle like?
A toddler will obviously eat less than a teenager, and family members who stay home all day volition likely eat more than those who commute to piece of work and eat out often.
Keep the ages and lifestyles of each member in mind as you plan your garden, and adapt the number of plantings to suit everyone's needs and likes.
If you raise chickens or make your own canis familiaris nutrient at domicile, you might want to add a few more plants for them, besides.
4. Do you similar to eat in flavor or preserve excess harvests for later use?
The chart beneath (I call it my Grow Enough Food! chart) lists the number of plants needed for fresh consumption.
Only what if canning is a hobby you enjoy? What if you love to make several batches of bootleg lycopersicon esculentum sauce every summer?
If you plan to preserve any of your fruits and vegetables, you'll probably desire to grow more than what is suggested.
A general dominion of thumb—depending on the type of vegetable preserved, how it's preserved (drying? fermenting?), and how much you actually desire to store—is to quadruple the number of plants suggested in the chart.
five. What tin you abound successfully in your climate?
Dissimilar soil and weather conditions, even yr to year, can touch on the yields from your vegetable crops.
Related: Know When to Abound: A Planting Calendar for Your Garden
Some plants are more prolific in warmer climates than they are in cooler climates, or they may have a shorter life cycle dictated by summer heat or fall frost.
Ultimately, the number of plants yous grow may vary based on how productive your garden and growing climate are.
How much to constitute in a vegetable garden to feed a family
These amounts are taken from my own personal experience and the average yields of common vegetables in a abode garden.
They don't take succession planting into business relationship. So for example, if you need to institute 20 carrots per person, you could plant ten at the start of the season and 10 in the middle of the season for a continuous harvest.
All amounts are based on fresh eating, and so adjust accordingly if you want to preserve whatever of your harvests or you take an actress long growing season.
Garden Betty'southward "Grow Enough Food" Nautical chart
| Crop | Number of Plants to Grow |
|---|---|
| Artichoke | 1 to 2 per person |
| Arugula | 5 per person |
| Asparagus | five to ten per person |
| Edible bean (bush) | 5 to ten per person |
| Edible bean (fava) | 4 to eight per person |
| Bean (pole) | 3 to 5 per person |
| Beet | 5 to 10 per person |
| Bok choy | i to 3 per person |
| Broccoli | 2 to 4 per person |
| Brussels sprout | 1 to ii per person |
| Cabbage | ii to 4 per person |
| Carrot | 10 to 20 per person |
| Cauliflower | 2 to 4 per person |
| Celery | ii to 6 per person |
| Chard | two to 3 per person |
| Collard | two to 3 per person |
| Corn (sweet) | 6 to 12 per person |
| Cucumber | 2 to iv per person |
| Daikon | iii to 6 per person |
| Eggplant | i to ii per person |
| Garlic | x to xv per person |
| Kale | 3 to v per person |
| Kohlrabi | iv to viii per person |
| Leek | 10 per person |
| Lettuce | 5 per person |
| Melon | 2 to 3 per person |
| Mustard green | five to ten per person |
| Okra | 2 to 3 per person |
| Onion (seedling) | x to 20 per person |
| Onion (scallion) | xv to 25 per person |
| Onion (shallot) | ten to 20 per person |
| Parsnip | five to x per person |
| Pea (shelling) | 15 to 30 per person |
| Pea (snap or snow) | 3 to 5 per person |
| Pepper (sweetness) | three to 5 per person |
| Pepper (hot) | one to 2 per person |
| Potato | v to x per person |
| Radish (spring) | 15 to 25 per person |
| Radish (winter) | v to 10 per person |
| Rhubarb | 1 to 2 per person |
| Spinach | 5 to x per person |
| Squash (summertime) | 1 to 2 per person |
| Squash (winter) | ane to ii per person |
| Sweet potato | 5 per person |
| Tomatillo | one to two per person |
| Tomato (cherry-red) | i per person |
| Lycopersicon esculentum (slicing) | ii to 4 per person |
| Turnip | 5 to 10 per person |
Proceed runway of how much you lot grow with the Ultimate Garden Diary. This printable PDF includes loads of charts and logs to help you stay organized!
Mutual questions about planting plenty nutrient
Take you started your seeds or transplanted your seedlings? Here are a few links to aid yous get started
- How Long Practice Seeds Last? (Plus a Cheat Sheet on Seed Life)
- The Beginner'due south No-Neglect Guide to Starting Seeds Indoors
- Soaking Seeds to Speed Formation
- Leggy Seedlings: What Causes Them and How to Correct Them
- How to Harden Off Your Seedlings
- Gardening Quick Tip: Swallow Those Thinnings
This post updated from an article that originally appeared on April 24, 2018.
Source: https://www.gardenbetty.com/how-much-to-plant-in-a-vegetable-garden-to-feed-a-family/
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