Farms,  Vegetables

How much should you plant in your garden to provide a year’s worth of food?

Do you know how much your family eats in a year’s time? As a farmer’s wife, I am keenly aware of how much meat, poultry, eggs, honey and dairy we consume. Raising enough food to meet our own needs, as well as an abundance to sell is an integral part of our life. To be honest, it hasn’t been the same with vegetables. I’ve at least attempted a garden most of the years that we have been married. Some years, I was more successful than others. If I didn’t grow it, I bought some produce from local farmers and preserved some foods for the winter: salsa, canned tomatoes, strawberry jam, pickles, and lots of frozen veggies and fruit. Still, I’ve always depended on going grocery shopping. I’ve never preserved everything that we needed for the winter, nor have I ever grown enough to meet all of our family’s needs.

Not long ago, people had to think about how much to grow for the year. They had to plan ahead, save seeds, plant enough for their family, preserve enough, etc. It wasn’t just a hobby. It didn’t take up a 4 foot by 4 foot square in their backyard, next to the beautifully fertilized lawn. It was their yard. It didn’t take a back burner in their spring and summer plans, after camping trips, barbecues and swimming parties. These are all good things, but people had to think about survival first and foremost. Partying came after the harvest. Now days, most of us party first, fertilize our lawns second, go to the grocery store and depend on other people to grow our food (and expect it to be cheap), and then we think about gardening, maybe, if ever, as a hobby.

I loved Joel Salatin’s talk @ The Healthy Life Summit. I pretty much love everything Joel says. This quote got me thinking:

“Everybody is a part of agriculture whether you want to be or not.”

We’re all a part of agriculture. Even if our part is just being a consumer, getting spinach and rice at the grocery store, we would not survive without agriculture. I, personally, want to be more involved than that. I want to know how much my family eats and how much we need to grow to supply that need. I want to work towards the goal of a completely self-sustaining homestead.

With that in mind, recently, I have been curious about exactly how much my family eats in a year. I started looking through a gardening book that used to belong to my Great Grandmother. I LOVE old books. I love the look of them, the feel of them, and the wisdom in them. I love that my Great Grandmother once thumbed through this very book and gleaned from it. I also have a newer book that I’ve made use of to determine how much to grow. These are the two main resources I used to compile this list:

Sunset’s Vegetable Garden Book (from 1944)

The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food

Want to know how much to plant per person? This is what I found:

Artichokes
1-4 plants per person

Asparagus
10-12 plants per person

Beans, Bush
10-20 plants per person

Beans, Lima
10-20 plants per person

Beans, Pole
10-20 plants per person

Beets
10-20 plants per person

Broccoli
5-10 plants per person

Brussels Sprouts
2-8 plants per person

Cabbage
3-10 plants per person

Carrots
10-40 plants per person

Cauliflower
3-5 plants per person

Celeriac
1-5 plants per person

Celery
3-8 plants per person

Corn
12-40 plants per person

Cucumbers
3-5 plants per person

Eggplant
1 plant per person, plus 2-3 extra per family

Kale
1 5’ row per person

Lettuce
10-12 plants per person

Melons
2-6 plants per person

Onions
40-80 plants per person

Peas
25-60 plants per person

Peppers
5-6 plants per person

Potatoes
10-30 plants per person

Pumpkins
1 plant per person

Rhubarb
2-3 crowns per person

Spinach
10-20 plants per person

Summer Squash
2-4 plants per person

Winter Squash
2 plants per person

Sweet Potatoes
5 plants per person

Tomatoes
2-5 plants per person

Obviously, all of this will vary based on your family’s size, tastes, allergies and climate. If you’re on the GAPS Diet, you’ll obviously plant more squash and leafy greens, and no corn, potatoes or sweet potatoes. If you can grow some of these vegetables year-round, you will be able to grow smaller rows. If you’re doing Square Foot Gardening, you may be able to plant things closer together & thus take up less space in your garden. Never the less, I believe that we all ought to be considering how much we use in a year and how much needs to be grown to supply our family’s needs (whether we are the ones doing the growing or not).

If you like analyzing this kind of information, you might like the charts in my Garden & Preservation Planner! 🙂

What are you planting in your garden this year?

More Reading About Gardening

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photo credit: Moncton Gardener

This post was shared at Fat Tuesday

109 Comments

  • Leah funk

    Hey there… Very helpful post . We do not have that much land for that many crops , but it is true we eat a lot of veggies per person . Thank you for sharing!

  • www.CaleysKitchenGarden.com

    What great research! I’ll definitely refer back to this. In my field, we will not have this many varieties. Too many different planting requirements ans scheduling differences. We like tomatoes and live on pesto. We’ll need more green beans and will plant them to be ready as the weather gets cold so the dill will be ready too and we can pickle them. By then we are not in the constant summer planting cycle and have the time too.

  • Vickie

    Hi Brenda!!! Your neighbor down the road here! Good info. A Group Victory Garden project with several others is in the works here. We each grow what grows well on our own property and bring it all together for sharing at harvest. I am excited to see how it all works out this year. Loved your garden boxes!

  • Judith

    This list is very helpful, but I need some clarification; I find this confusing. Are you assuming that everyone in the family will eat a significant amount of each item? Because some items overlap. For instance, there are 3 kinds of beans. Is everyone eating all of them, all year round? Are some of the beans being eaten fresh in summer, and others stored for winter? Is the winter squash being eaten all year round or just fall/winter? Are the sweet potatoes a year’s supply, or just a few months’ supply? Are the cukes being pickled and used all year, or just eaten fresh? The same questions apply to most items on the list. I have very limited garden space, so this is an important question for me.

    • Brenda

      Hi Judith, great questions! Assume that everything that can be stored or preserved is stored or preserved. If something can be grown as a winter crop (like greens, etc.), then plant in succession instead of preserving. Make sense?

  • Diana

    You might also check out “The Self Sufficient Life and how to Live it” and “How to grow more Vegetables”. These also have helpful lists – though no two are the same. 🙂

  • Kim Yamaguchi

    Great guide, thank you! We’ve got a goal of at least 75% of all of our produce being grown by us, so this is very helpful!

  • Guest

    Absolutely not accurate on amounts. Wowza! My family of 6 would need 30-60 plants of broccoli? WHAT? Seriously? We had 8 last summer and had plenty to eat all summer, froze for winter, AND gave tons of it away to others! Similar with other items on this list. 3-5 cucumber plants per person…..would leave you with more pickles than you could eat in 5 years! ;/ We haven’t bought a canned vegetable in over 3 years, but I still think these numbers are not at all accurate.

    • Liz Jennings

      Haha! It really is about preference. My family eats about 3 pounds of broccoli per week. I have NEVER grown enough to keep from having to buy from the store. We also typically grow cucumbers, about 3-5. During the summer, we eat a cucumber a day. Sometimes as a snack, sometimes on a salad. We’ve also been know to polish off a gallon of dill pickles in well under a month.
      So yeah, all about what you like. Beets would last us until we die! 1 Eggplant would would last us the whole year.

  • Amanda

    Absolutely not accurate on amounts. Wowza! My family of 6 would need 30-60 plants of broccoli? WHAT? Seriously? We had 8 last summer and had plenty to eat all summer, froze for winter, AND gave tons of it away to others!12 celery plants TOTAL was plenty to chop and freeze for winter AND give away, ….. Similar with other items on this list. 3-5 cucumber plants per person…..would leave you with more pickles than you could eat in 5 years! ;/ We haven’t bought a canned vegetable in over 3 years, but I still think these numbers are not at all accurate.

    • Brenda

      Hi Amanda,

      How awesome that you were able to grow and preserve so much! I don’t think that 12 celery plants would be enough for my family for the year. 🙂 We eat a lot of soups with veggies and we eat very little grains, so we use a lot of produce. I didn’t come up with these amounts on my own, I acquired them from research. The source that was most helpful was the gardening book from 1944 that I mentioned above. Maybe people ate more veggies then than they do now? I am wondering if your family eats side dishes like rice and pasta often? If so, you probably wouldn’t use as many veggies.

  • THollis

    I agree about Joel Salatin’s talk last week on the Healthy Life Summit.
    Thanks for the information. I have already shared it with friends who have just moved “to the country.”

      • Jamie Larrison

        We were planning on planting in succession but discovered that if you don’t uproot the plant, just cut off the top leaving 1-2 inches at the base it grows back. No need to keep using seeds!

        • Anonymous

          I just pick the outer leaves of lettuce until it looks like it is bolting, then I take the whole plant. As spring approaches I focus on slow bolting varieties like Black Seeded Simpson, Oak Leaf, Salad Bowl and while not a lettuce, a good summer greens: New Zealand or Malabar spinach.

    • The Prudent Homemaker

      Lettuce should be planted every 2-3 weeks, but I also grow looseleaf variteies, which can be harvested 3 times before bolting, by picking outer leaves or just cutting it off.

  • Tina Cochrane

    I just moved into a new house and have a huge garden space available. I planted lots but nothing of MINE came up… but I had billions of VOLUNTEER tomatoes randomly all over! Now that the space is mine and I know what will be growing there, hopefully next year there’s no surprises 🙂 My goal is to feed not only our 3-person family through the winter (through pickling, jams, dehydrating, and freezing) but also have a bit extra to give to other family members. I have very little variety for vegetables (picky eaters) but what I do have, i plant LOTS of!!

  • Kathy T

    Love this list. We have been working towards growing all of our food for several years and I have been wanting a list like this. I do see some things that would be too low for us. I grew 60 tomatoes last years for a family of 8(well that is how many are at home right now) and I was still not able to can enough tomato products for the year, so the 40 that it suggest would definitely be too low for us. I have 110 seedlings growing right now and am hoping that comes closer. These are great guidelines! Thanks!

  • Melissa

    Another really good book for serious backyard food growers is “The
    Backyard Homestead” by Carleen Madigan. To me, her techniques take a backyard
    hobby gardener to a whole new level of family food producer. I think this here is not a bad place to start as a guideline for planning purposes. I know for myself, I would need the higher end of carrots, the lower end of squash and probably no celeriac! And I know this is geared toward veggies, but my garden would totally not be complete without a whole lot of strawberries! Also, this list may be a bit misleading to some people (like me in the Northwest) who have 2 overlapping growing seasons. I can (and do!) grow broccoli in the spring and fall-as well as the other cool weather crops (spinach, cauliflower, snap peas, kale and Swiss Chard). That really helps with garden usage-maximizing space.

  • Jane

    The lettuce makes no sense to me. You can’t preserve lettuce, it has a short shelf life and it bolts in hot weather anyway. Why would you plant 48 plants all at once for a family of 4? Much better to stagger plantings in cool months so you are harvesting as much as your family can eat in a week during the spring and fall (with whatever you can get from bolting resistant varieties in the hotter months.

    • Sis

      you don’t plant them all at once, you make succession plantings. you can also change where you plant or what you plant for the hotter days. Black seeded simpson takes heat better as do other loose leaf lettuces. In the late summer have your seed sown where it might get afternoon shade or use a mesh row cover. In the winter, you can extend and plant lettuce in a cold frame. It is one of the plants that are the easiest to do all year long.

    • Joe

      Also matter where you are, for us here in TX, I plant in fall and the plants produce until mid to late spring. Leaf lettuce is our fav!!

    • mars

      lettuce doesn’t ask for much, give the rest to chickens. what doesn’t make sense to me is potato. i mean , 5 plants of it i eat in 10 days.

  • Nancy Brewer

    I have a Bernardin Home Canning Guide that doesn’t have a copyright date but the pictures look like sometime in the 1940s. It was originally 50 cents. Canning Per person: 22 qts citrus, 40 qts tomato juice, 4 qts. apples, 3.5 qts berries, 3.5 qts cherries, 15 qts fruit juices, 10 qts peaches, 2 qts pears, 2.5 qts plums, 2 qts asparagus, 9 qts green beans, 3 qts carrots, 3 qts corn, 4 qts greens, 5 pts peas, 2.25 qts lima beans, 4 qts beets, 2 pts okra, 2.5 qts sauerkraut, 1 qt succotash, 18 qts soup mixture, 13.5 pts jelly, 13.5 pts preserves, 6 pts pickles. If you multiply it by 4 or 5 people, most families wouldn’t have the space to store all those pints and quarts! It would take a lot of dedicated gardening to be able to put up this much food.

    • The Prudent Homemaker

      Interesting amounts. I can a lot more than that of several of those things per person every year (I don’t grow or can all of those items though). I have a family of 9 and I built myself a walk-in pantry to keep my canned goods.

      • Liz

        I was enjoying your comments – and then I realized it’s you! And I follow your blog! No wonder those good ideas sounded so familiar. Great ideas are at her website, everyone!!! 🙂

  • Anonymous

    We grow almost all of our own food, raise livestock and provide for our dairy and meat consumption. No offense, but this veggie grow-list is very inaccurate.

      • Maeve TS

        I work mine out by thinking about what vegetables I would eat most days and then multiply it by the year. Of course, you’d get some failures and some gluts, but you can always store the gluts. For example, we are planning to do 360 onions, not including scallions, for next year. That is for my husband and I. We will plant them successionally so we don’t get 360, plus the scallions all at once!

  • Denise

    I lease a 6′ x 16′ plot at my local community center. For the fall, I am tempted to try the suggestions here and feed myself. Up until now, I have been planting for “fun” and really enjoy watching my veggies grow. They taste sooo much better!! My plan for the summer garden (central Florida) is okra, southern peas, cowpeas and watermelon. I don’t know what will go in my square foot space but my vision is fence to fence vines, bushes and green! I will look for the resources you all have mentioned. My dream is to own an acre of land, buy a “tiny” house and have a garden, chickens and a goat. With the grandchildren’s help, that is!!

  • Mary Schultz

    Thanks so much for sharing this! I’ve wondered about this myself, but had no resources to look for info. Will try to work with this info. on what little space I have. I see in the comments that there are other books recommended as well. Will try the local library!

  • Laranda

    This is some great info. Just curious about the lettuce, that seems like an awful lot for just the summer. Do you have a way of preserving it to enjoy all year or are you in a climate that allows for all year growing? I suppose it could be grown indoors like herbs.

  • J.King

    growoing one row or more of all those plants mentioned. have 90 corns, 25 tomatos, countless carrots, and lettuce,a nd beans. This stuff is what needs taught to our young. In my opinion.

    • Karen Neumann

      i would have loved to learn this.. I did hear from my mohter how much she hated canning.. but I would have loved to learn.

  • lynnybee

    Sure it varies by personal taste and specific family eating habits.. but I think the main point of this is … it’s a lot! it is not a small little garden tucked into your backyard. has anyone actually figured out the approx acreage??

    • Patricia H

      We do a 300×100 garden every year, and my husband has the double rows wide enough to allow him to make two passes with the rototiller. You can cut back on the foot print if you are able to do manual labor for tilling. The amounts just seem a little low to me and my families eating habits. I can all summer and we don’t buy vegetables ever. We do 50 tomato plants, 2 50′ rows of pole beans 10 hills of various winter squashes, two 50′ rows of peas, at least a 50 foot each row of carrots, onions, garlic, Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, brussel sprouts cucumbers, dill. I have dedicated beds of strawberries, raspberries, black berries, several varieties of apples. Then the greens, Kale, swiss Chard, lettuce, 2 50 foot rows of spinach. The corn and potatoes take up the most room. Atleast a quarter of the garden is taken up with corn, planted in series, so it doesn’t all ripen the same time, and then atleast 4 50′ rows of potatoes. We companion plant as much as possible so that the planted area is heavily planted to avoid weeds and to increase the production. It takes a LOT of time. I usually spend 18 hours a day working on the garden or canning from March until October, but it is worth knowing what you are eating and knowing you won’t have to figure out something new if there is a disaster.

  • Catherine, The Herb Lady

    Excellent topic – thank you for posting. I’ve shared your link on our local permaculture site.

  • Jodie Banner

    Wow, with a family of six , it would take up every square inch of my backyard….I do expand my garden every year, and even trellised cucumbers this year so i could grow more, but I don’t think I would ever be able to achieve that much.

  • Jennifer Miller

    Love this list! I’m just now getting in to gardening, but I’ve been curious how much it would take to be completely self-sustaining. I think some of the numbers seem a little high too, if these are from the old gardening book, I’m wondering if their plants aren’t as prolific as ours. Even using organic growing practices, we may have more access to hybrid plants, better soil additions, water during droughts, etc. that make our plants produce more veggies. I could be way off, but it’s an interesting thought. My crazy sociology degree at work there. 😉

    Also, I found a gorgeous copy of the Woman’s Home Companion Book from 1947 at a book sale a few years ago. It’s so great!!

    • merav

      It depends on your soil and climate. Last year I planted 7 cherry tomato plants for one person and didn’t get enough to spit at. This year, the soil is better (a bit) and I planted more –18 initially planted (five died)– and to a one they’ve far surpassed last year’s crop. They still aren’t producing like some of the gardens I read about with envy. The same went for everything else I planted. Better to plant too many and have a glut than to plant too few and be veggie-less.

  • Jamie Larrison

    I’ll need to do this next year and for our fall garden planting! Thanks for doing the research on this; incredibly helpful!

  • WoodsyMumsy

    I started with the recipes.

    Then I made a years menu plan and added up the ingredients.
    I then planted twice what we use.
    Here is one example
    Ketchup – uses tomatoes, garlic, onion, vinegar, salt, sugar, and I need 24 quart jars per season.
    I planted paste tomatoes, garlic, onions, sugar beets. I made cider vinegar from wild apples. I bought a large bag of salt, a case rubber rings, and have jars with glass tops.

    I also calculated storage space, wood for cooking, and the time it would take, and WHEN I would need to make it at harvest time.

    Back in the day, it was reasonable to make 2 years worth, just in case of crop failures.
    I also save seed for next 3 years worth of planting, as well as sets for garlic. I save onions and sugar beets to be replanted for seed next year.
    By doing it this way, I have gradually increased the size of my garden each year, adding recipes each year. It takes time, but it is very accurate and I do not get overwhelmed at harvest time..

    This years projects are making white sugar from beets, requiring removing the molasses. I am also canning cattail hearts, and growing a new grain for me, amaranth. I am making a large root cellar and experimenting with freezing salt water in pop bottles to make an ice house. A greenhouse is my next large project, along with a barn for a dairy cow.

  • Anonymous

    Thanks for this list!

    Are those numbers based off of just one planting season? Also, what’s the approximate square footage needed to grow all of that?

  • Jaizi

    Seriously, Only 10 – 40 carrots per person for a whole year?!?!?!
    I’m thinking more like 1 carrot a day per person! 🙂 And in Sq ft. Gardening terms that’s 1 square, every 2 people, every week! I don’t think I have room for 52 squares of carrots, let alone anything else! 🙁
    *Based on if 1 person ate a carrot and then you had 2 or 3 carrots for lunch/dinner, that’s 3 or 4 carrots a day. And that’s only on a household of 2 or 3 people. So an average would be 1 carrot per person per day… Maybe I just eat too many carrots 😀

  • Sherry Bagley

    Fantastic list. Of course it isn’t going to be accurate for every family, but it’s definitely a starting place. I just figured out the spacing for our family of 5 (which includes 3 teenage boys, so maybe I should’ve figured for a family of 10! LOL). I used the spacing model from “Grow More Vegetables…” by Jeavons and figured in succession planting to keep all of the beds occupied. I also figured that cool weather plants like cabbage and lettuce could be planted half in the Spring and half in the Fall, thereby only taking up half as much space at one time. Sooooo, deep breath, I ‘should’ be able to grow the whole family’s vegetables in 600 square feet. That is six 5’x20′ beds. Definitely do-able.

  • emuiagalelei

    Great list! We eat a TON of fresh produce and I have been interesting in starting a garden. My goal would be to plant enough for the year but being a newbie to gardening I may have to start off with just a few plants. Thank you so much for all of the great information you share on your site!! 🙂

  • Aimee

    This is a great post! It’s so hard for gardening newbies to work out what they need to plant to feed themselves for a few months let along a year, and you’ve come up with the answer right here, wonderful 🙂

  • Arianna

    I try to grow enough corn , beans , peas and potatoes to last my family of 5 for a year. Sometimes I have bumper crops and sometimes the crops do poorly depending on the weather. I plant 6 – 18 foot rows of corn, beans, peas and 4 of potatoes to get enough to last us the year 1-2 rows of carrots and a couple of squash plants and a row of broccoli. We love salad so I plant lettuce mix every 2 weeks for a month to have fresh lettuce through the summer and fall .

  • Cori Brickey

    I’m so glad I’ve stumbled across this. I’ve also been googling how much yield I get off one plant to help me plan our my garden. Despite the difference in opinions in this string of comments this is a starting point. You have to consider ALL the variety you have here, and what you’ll eat. Its all trial and error, getting your footings. I have a family of 5 myself, we eat mostly any veggie, so this year I’m planning on growing for preserving AND eating as we go. I’m a zone 5 so my growing season is 6 months at best. I have 600 square feet in back and 300 up front. One thing I’ve planned on is making the back edge and sides of each garden all trellis for climbers. Tomatoes are going along the largest garden in the back row. I’ve chosen varieties with the largest fruits/yields. The rest will be occupied by all winter squash, and my pickling cukes, I created a name for myself last year for my pickles! All my herbs are growing near their pairs, basil/oregano and cilantro by all the tomatoes, dill by the cukes 🙂 I’m using the 3 sisters method for my corn/beans/summer squash/pumpkins. I have 4 plats planned for those and succession plantings. My smaller garden is for my lettuce, broccoli, spinach (lots of spinach it freezes well), and more cool season veggies. One thing I have learned for space saving is after your cool seasons have finished growing on your trellis (peas for instance), plant your summer lovers just in time in their place, leaving the roots in tact b/c they are rich in nitrogen..for instance my melons are going up after the peas and my cukes too! Just some examples. I’m having a hard time filling IN space. I already have a ginormous amount of bell and hot peppers planned. I’m throwing the carrots and beets in some empty trellis space for succession planting. I REALLY want to try my hand at some quinoa!! But we’ll see 😉 I plan to log a journal of my every move this year and my yields. That way if I fall short or too much I can be better prepared for the next year! I’m ready to start NOW!!!

  • bvanover

    John Jeavons has a book out that I refer too a lot. The name of the book is “How To Grow More Vegetables* *than you thought ever possible on less land than you can imagine. It has lots of information that I thought I couldn’t live without. And it has printables at the back of the book that can be used by you as needed.

  • Isabelle Gendron

    I just stumbled on your blog. Thank you for the infos, this is exactly what I was looking for. Like you, always hard to know how much we need exactly for a year. Here we have about 5 months of growing season maximum with a harsh winter so better plan enough 😉

  • Amy

    Very helpful. Thank you. I am just starting out so my garden is very small. I live in FL so I can plant year-round and hope to expand this winter assuming I figure out how things grow here and keep the massive amount of bugs away

  • Dani Stout

    Love this article. I saved it for when we would buy a house. We’re looking at a house with around 5,000 square feet, about an eight of an acre I think. Any guesses as to how many square feet you’d need to plant all this? Thanks Brenda!

  • CelticBrewer

    I have about 650 sq feet of planted space and that’s more than enough for one person. I can, dehydrate, and freeze for the winter. And I still a manged to give a lot of it away.
    Bonus points for including the mini-farming book at the end. But then they get subtracted for mentioned square foot gardening- a horrible labor-intensive and expensive method. Intensive gardening is far better.

  • Lotus

    I am very happy to fine this site .I always want a garden, no luck yet with the green thumb. I never plan a year’s menu I just plant and have a few things to reap. I might follow this method tks.

  • jan

    hi! , this is a great list , is this an entire years worth of vegetables for a year ie if my family doesn’t eat asparagus then do we need to grow twice as much as something else ? many thanks

  • Bailey

    Just asked myself this exact question, I grew up helping my grandparents grow our family garden that fed 6 different families and we are finally doing our own for a family of 5. We want to store enough for the winter months as well so this was very helpful in figuring out how many plants and how much space we need to accomplish it. Thanks for sharing!

  • Joe Cercy

    Looking at that list, you can see that there would not be a lot of free time. Nowadays, most yards would not be large enough to supply enough food for a year.

    • SlowBro

      Not true. Google the Dervaes. There are plenty of people supplying their needs on yards 1/4 acre or in the Dervaes’ case, much less.

  • Jill Courser

    Just came across this! Our family is trying to really change our eating habits and the grocery bill is getting a little crazy. I have always enjoyed gardening as a hobby, but I think we really need to start seeing it as a necessity, not an option, as you say, after all the other stuff that happens in the summer! We have a family of 7, 5 of which are growing boys, so that pretty much means we will have to plant a whole. lot. of. vegetables.

    • brenda

      Jill, you can do it! There is nothing like fresh veggies! I get how difficult (and expensive) it is to feed a family of 7! Wow, 5 boys! We have 3 boys, 2 girls! 🙂

  • Karen Fogarty

    I grow most of our food. The garden is only going for at most 6 months a year. Asparagus 200+ plants because you only get 1-2 speasrs each in the spring. As a couiple we eat lat east 100# of potastoes 50# of sweet potatoes, 50-75 quarts of tomato’s in the form of stewed, canned, salsa, tomatos, and tomatos with squash etc. Green beans 75-100 pints, dry black eye or southern peas 6-8 pounds, jelly a dozen jars of grape, squash yellow 30 pints, collards or turnip greens 20-30 quarts, corn 100 plants. Green peppers 6 plants chop and freeze. Cabbage 20 heads every other year for saurkraut, 10 the other year for fresh. Carrotsd 100, onions I casn never grow enough. 6 hens for eggs, a hog, several sdheep and a deer for meat with much of it made into sausage. A peasr tree, a peach tree, three grape vines, and an apple tree. You need 3-4 fruit and veggies a meal, one meat one !milk and at leasdt one starch x 365 days. Your garden won’t do that. I also go to the store for milk rice and flour, toilet paper and baked goods. It takes a lot more than you think

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