How Many Vegatables to Plant to Feed a Family of 2

So, you desire to get-go a garden, just non sure how large the garden should be to be able to fully support your family. This is a common question for beginner gardeners or someone who are looking to expand their garden.

The truth is, there is no single correct reply when it comes to deciding vegetable garden size. Some sources say 100 square feet per person is the magic number, but that can't exist right considering every family has different needs and preferences when it comes to food. Also, plants vary in size, and so it depends on what vegetables you grow.

That is why we created this highly-customizable garden size calculator to assist y'all find the right number. Just input how many members in your family and choose which plants you want to grow and the figurer will tell you how many plants you need to grow and how big your garden should be.

How Many Vegetables to Plant?

Crops	Harvest Needed/Person (lbs)	Harvest Needed (lbs)	Avg. Yield per 100 anxiety (lb)	Plants Spacing (in)	Row Length (ft)	Plants Needed
Artichoke	3	3	fifty	48	6	2
Asparagus	2	2	30	18	7	5
Basil	0.5	0.5	45	xiv	ii	ii
Lima Beans (bush)	3	iii	25	iv	12	36
Lima Beans (pole)	iii	iii	50	16	six	5
Snap Beans (bush)	15	15	120	iv	xiii	39
Snap Beans (pole)	15	15	150	6	10	twenty
Soy Beans	xv	15	50	10	30	36
Beets	3.5	three.5	150	2	3	xviii
Bok Choy	three	3	130	eight	3	five
Broccoli	8	8	100	18	8	6
Brussel Sprouts	vi	6	75	18	8	6
Cabbage	15	15	150	18	10	7
Carrots	x	10	100	x	10	12
Cauliflower	9	ix	100	xviii	9	6
Celery	four	iv	60	eight	7	eleven
Cilantro	0.25	0.25	l	eight	1	ii
Collards	2	2	100	12	ii	2
Corn	25	25	eighty	16	32	24
Cucumbers	8	8	120	24	7	iv
Dill	0.25	0.25	sixty	14	ane	1
Eggplant	4	4	100	20	4	three
Fennel	1	1	90	12	2	2
Garlic	1	ane	25	half-dozen	4	8
Jerusalem Artichoke	1.5	1.5	150	16	1	ane
Kale	1	ane	100	12	1	1
Kohlrabi	1.five	one.5	75	6	2	iv
Leek	1	1	45	4	3	9
Lettuce	vi	vi	l	14	12	eleven
Melons	6	6	110	42	6	2
Mustard	one	1	l	6	2	4
Okra	1	1	100	sixteen	i	1
Onions	eight	8	100	iv	8	24
Parsley	0.25	0.25	30	viii	i	ii
Parsnip	3	3	100	4	3	9
Peas	iii	3	40	iv	viii	24
Peppers	3	iii	lx	16	five	4
Potatoes	25	25	100	12	25	25
Pumpkins	x	x	100	42	10	3
Radish	2	2	40	4	5	15
Rhubarb	four	4	100	4	4	12
Rutabaga	1.five	i.5	120	vi	2	4
Spinach	3	3	40	12	eight	8
Summer Squash	10	ten	150	24	7	4
Winter Squash	6	6	100	32	6	3
Strawberry	thirteen	xiii	140	20	10	6
Sweet Potatoes	3	3	100	14	3	3
Swiss Chard	3	3	85	10	4	5
Tomatoes	24	24	100	30	24	10
Reddish Tomatoes	17	17	150	sixteen	12	9
Turnips	5	5	75	6	7	14
Watermelons	12	12	200	60	vi	ii

How Much Garden Space Do You Need?

To detect the platonic size of your vegetable garden, please bank check the box on plants you want to grow from the listing to a higher place. We'll then calculate the required size automatically.

Select at least one constitute to become the number.

Now, if you want to have a more accurate estimation, here are the 8 considerations for deciding your vegetable garden size:

1. Minor kitchen garden or a fully self-reliant garden?

What's the purpose of your garden?

Is information technology but a small kitchen garden to grow fresh nutrient and reduce your shopping budget, or do you want to be fully self-reliant from your garden?

Our calculator assumes the average numbers. It won't be manner off if you're slightly below or to a higher place the boilerplate, merely if you lot're on the farthermost sides, you lot will demand to adjust the number accordingly.

If you lot haven't started your first garden nevertheless, our best communication is to just utilize the result from the computer, it's usually good enough. Then, increase or decrease the number of plants you lot abound in the next year depending on the outcome from your previous year.

ii. How many people are y'all trying to feed?

Obviously, if y'all are a single person, you won't demand the same size garden as a family of 4. And if you lot are a family unit of iv, you'll need a smaller garden than a family of six. Which is why we allow you to modify the family unit size in our calculator.

But what might not be obvious is the number of people exterior your immediate family that you might need to feed throughout the year.

In our first years of gardening, I didn't think this role through. I would only consider the people under my roof and failed to realize how frequently my mother in law had dinner with us throughout the calendar week and didn't include her in my calculations. You can guess the residue of the story.

Right now, I support my parents also as my immediate family. I've learned from my previous calculation failures to include them when planning my gardening space.

Other than feeding an extended family unit, if you entertain or participate in potlucks regularly, yous should too have this into consideration when planning your garden. Similarly, if y'all want to sell some fresh produce for extra income.

iii. Are yous eating fresh or preserving your harvest?

If you lot are planning on eating fresh produce straight out of your garden, you won't need as large of a garden as someone who is planning on preserving the harvest.

Our reckoner assumes that you will preserve your harvest and use it throughout the year. And by the mode, y'all should consider preserving your harvest if you're not yet. Y'all will need more produce, merely this allows you to cut groceries upkeep throughout the year or fifty-fifty eliminate it completely.

Okay, but what if you're sure not going to preserve some food, and just desire some fresh tomatoes for the sandwich every at present and so? Well, in that instance you don't need a calculator, only plant one tomato found.

four. Will yous be succession planting?

If you programme on using the same garden space to plant multiple vegetables, you may not demand as much infinite if the growth times are different.

For example, if you lot want to abound peas and green beans in the same twelvemonth, you could do this in the same garden bed. Peas tin can be planted in February (depending on your planting zone), and green beans are planted later on and honey the nitrogen peas add together to the soil. Basically, it'southward a expert idea to establish dark-green beans afterward peas in the aforementioned space.

When the peas are finished, use the same space to institute dark-green beans. This ways you wouldn't demand as large of a garden space because they are grown in succession instead of simultaneously.

If you lot are working with express gardening space, consider succession planting to be able to grow more in the space you have.

5. Do you plan on having multiple garden beds?

Nosotros abound multiple gardens on our belongings per season. Instead of using one large garden plot, we break downwards our needs into multiple gardens.

This doesn't really have anything to do directly with the full size (or does information technology?), just information technology'due south something you need to take into consideration when planning your garden.

If yous desire to dissever the bed for each found, you should get the size needed for each plant on its own past check-marker merely one institute from the tabular array higher up and accept a note of the garden size for that one plant. And so repeat the same footstep for different plants.

There are also other reasons to separate garden beds. For case, I take one garden bed for my family, 1 for my extended family, and 1 to sell produce.

Yous tin can also have one garden area for plants that are good companions, like the three sisters garden.

All in all, having multiple beds makes organization much easier if you're planning a large garden, and it's beneficial in general. But one downside is that you'll need bigger total area for your garden because of the space betwixt beds.

At the very least, yous need 2 feet of space between garden beds, and you'll probable need more than that merely to make it easier for you to manage the plants especially if you have tools or handbasket with you.

half dozen. How many times in the year will you be planting?

Technically, you tin start 3 unlike gardens per twelvemonth.

You might want to grow a leap garden filled with lettuce, spinach, cabbage, and peas. Then a summer garden filled with tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and peppers. Finally, stop out the yr by growing a fall garden with cabbage, squash, and root vegetables.

This is more tiring than having one garden per year or two, which most gardeners do. Only if yous practice it right, you lot can save a lot of garden area, even if you lot plan on preserving the harvest.

To calculate the total garden size, you'll need to exercise 3 different calculations, each calculation for plants that you will abound on dissimilar planting flavour and use the largest number of all 3. That's your garden size.

vii. Which vegetable do you like the well-nigh?

This may seem obvious, only if you like a certain food, y'all'll exist more likely to swallow it more than the average person.

Our calculators use the average amount of vegetables that a person consume. And then if you like to eat tomatoes, for example, you might want to plant more than tomatoes.

However, one thing to remember is that different plant needs different full area to grow properly.

It could make more sense (financially, at least) to plant smaller plants with high yield even if they're not your favorite vegetables if you have a limited space and buy your favorite vegetable from the grocery store instead.

Write down all the vegetables yous'd like to grow and compare their spacing needs and how well they do in your zone to narrow down what you volition abound in your garden.

8. Different gardening methods require different garden size

Y'all may have heard of many unlike gardening methods. From the traditional garden bed with rows of crops, raised beds, container gardening, keyhole garden, foursquare-foot gardening, to the more avant-garde methods like hydroponics, aquaponics, or the infinite-efficient vertical gardening.

These methods have their own ready of pros and cons, and so get alee and read the link above to compare each method and find which ane is all-time for y'all.

As for the calculator in this page, it tin be used for the traditional in-ground garden and raised beds, just you'll accept to make adjustments for other gardening methods.

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Source: https://morningchores.com/vegetable-garden-size/

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