Calculating How Much to Plant Per Person for a Year of Abundance
Whether you are brand new to gardening or have many years of experience, calculating how much to plant per person for a year can be a challenge!
This is how I calculate how much to plant for our family. This year, we had to do a lot more calculating, since we are going in together to garden with my siblings.
How Much to Plant Per Person
Step 1: Keep a record of how much of each vegetable you grow each year so you can make adjustments based on your actual harvest amounts in your garden.
Step 2: Make a list estimating how much of eat crop you will eat per week multiplied by the number of weeks you will be eating that vegetable. For example, you might want two winter squash per week for the fall and winter. 2 per week times 25 weeks = 50 squash total.
Step 3: Take a look at our list below of estimated yields to calculate how much you need to plant to grow enough for your family’s needs. If your winter squash variety produces the average of 2-3 fruits per plant, you’d need about 20 plants to produce 50 winter squash.
Step 4: Be sure to include succession planting for quick maturing crops. You don’t want to end up with 60 heads of lettuce all ready the same week and none the rest of the season!
Keeping Records of What You Plant
Calculating how many plants to grow is tricky because yields can vary so much. Yields will depend on your region, local climate, gardening method and soil, and the specific variety you are growing.
Yields can be completely different from year to year, but you can still make an educated guess on how many plants to grow per person for a year!
The best way to get an idea of how many plants you need is to keep track of each year. If you grew 10 tomato plants last year and ran out of tomato sauce halfway through winter, you know that you will need to
double that number of plants to get the amount you need for a whole year.
If you keep track of your yields as well, that can help you to make an even more educated guess. For example, if you know you usually harvest 10 pounds of tomatoes per plant, then you can easily calculate how many plants you will need to grow 200lbs of tomatoes!
I keep a garden journal. Although I don’t have time to write down every little thing, I can keep my garden plan and notes all in one place so it’s easy to look back at last year when planning a new garden.
I weigh and write down amounts for storage vegetables that are harvested mostly at one time. Crops that we eat on throughout the summer I don’t bother weighing, but do keep track of how many plants, or how many feet of row we grew so I can evaluate whether that was enough!
Average Garden Crop Yields
If you haven’t gardened before, or haven’t kept track, this list will give you an idea of the range of yields you can expect for each vegetable. As I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of variables, so some of these ranges are pretty wide.
You can get a better idea of what crops will do the best in your area based on your climate and the crops that commercial farms are growing near you.
If you live in a short-season climate/lower growing zone number as I do, you can expect to get a lower yield than someone who has a longer growing season. For example, I usually get 5-6lbs of tomatoes per plant, compared to the more typical 10lbs or more.
Someone who lives in a cool, wet climate may get higher yields on cool crops such as salads, broccoli and cabbage. Someone who lives in the south can expect better yields of heat-loving crops such as peppers, melons, and okra.
Additionally, some seed catalogs will list typical yields for a variety. For example, it might state that a certain pumpkin variety normally gives three 5-8lb fruits. This is another number you can use to make your educated guess on how much to plant!
Normal Yields Per 10′ Row
Asparagus 3-5lbs/10’row
Beans, Green Bush 3-4lbs, Pole 4-5lbs/10’row
Beets 6-10lbs/10’row
Broccoli 4-6lbs/10′ row, or 1 head plus side shoots from each plant
Cabbage 1 head per plant
Carrots 7-15lbs/10′ row
Cauliflower 8-10lbs/10′ row, or 1 head per plant
Celery 1 head per plant
Collards 4-17lbs/10′ row
Corn 1-3 ears per plant
Cucumbers 8-17lbs/10′ row
Eggplant 8-15 fruits per plant
Garlic 1 bulb per plant
Kale 4-8lbs/10′ row
Kohlrabi 4-8lbs/10′ row
Leeks 1 leek per plant
Lettuce 4-10lbs/10′ row, or 1 head per plant
Melons 2-3 fruits per plant
Okra 3-17lbs/10′ row
Onions 1 onion per plant
Onions, green 1 1/2lbs/10′ row
Parsnips 10lbs/10′ row
Peas 3-4lbs shelling, 4-7lbs snow and snap/10′ row
Peppers 5-20lbs/10′ row
Potatoes 2-5lbs per plant
Pumpkins 1-4 fruits per plant
Radish 1 per plant
Rhubarb 1-5lbs per plant
Rutabagas 8-30lbs/10′
Spinach 4-10lbs/10′ row
Summer Squash 8-20lbs/10′ row
Winter Squash 1-4 fruits per plant
Strawberries 15-18lbs/10′ row
Sweet Potato 7-20lbs/10′ row
Swiss chard 5-12lbs/10 row
Tomatillo 1-2lbs per plant
Tomato 5-15lbs per plant
Turnips 8-12lbs/10′ row
Watermelon 1-3 fruits per plant
Calculating a How Much to Plant Per Person for Year
The second part of calculating how much to plant per person for a year is figuring out how much of each veggie your family actually needs. If you will be preserving (canning, freezing, dehydrating, fermenting…) the crop for the whole year, you can estimate how much you will need per week and multiply by 52 weeks.
For example, if you would like 2 meals of green beans per week and your family eats 1 pound per meal, you’ll need about 104lbs for a whole year.
For produce that you will only be eating fresh, calculate how much you will use during the time that crop is producing.
Some crops won’t last a full year in storage but will last part of the winter, for example, root vegetables, potatoes, onions, garlic, winter squash, pumpkins, and cabbage. For these, I multiply by the number of weeks I expect them to last.
Here are some examples:
Green Beans for freezing- 2 meals per week x 1lb/meal x 52 weeks = 104lbs per year
Head Lettuce for fresh eating – 3 heads per week x 20 week growing season = 60 heads total (you’ll need to stagger plantings to get a continuous harvest rather than having 60 heads all ready at the same time!)
Pumpkins for fresh eating- 1 per week x 26 weeks = 26 pumpkins
Carrots for the root cellar or extra fridge – 2lbs per week x 35 weeks = 70 lbs
Onions for fresh eating – 2 per week x 26 weeks = 52 onions + 20 for dehydrating or freezing + 10 for making salsa = 82 onions
Basically, you are estimating how much you will eat per week multiplied by the number of weeks you will be eating that vegetable.
Succession Planting
Succession planting is an important part of growing your own food. Not just following one crop with another to get more out of your space, but staggering plantings of the same crop to get enough for the whole season. For example, If you plant all 60 of your lettuce plants at once, you’ll have 60 heads of lettuce all ready at the same time.
To spread out your harvest of vegetables you only want to eat fresh, you can plant enough for 2-4 weeks at a time. Plant another 2-4 weeks worth 2-4 weeks later. This is most important with salad crops that you don’t want to be ready all at once, such as lettuce and radishes. But if you have a long growing season, you can do this with anything to give you a longer harvest window!
Putting it all Together to Figure Out How Much to Plant Per Person
Green Beans for freezing- 2 meals per week x 1lb/meal x 52 weeks = 104lbs per year
At 4lbs/10′, you’ll need to plant about 260′ of green beans. If your season is long enough, you might be able to grow multiple plantings. When the first crop is done, you can plant a second round, giving you twice as many beans in the same amount of space.
Head Lettuce for fresh eating – 3 heads per week x 20 week growing season = 60 heads total (you’ll need to stagger plantings to get a continous harvest rather than having 60 heads all ready at the same time!)
For 60 heads of lettuce, you’ll need 60 plants. But to stagger the harvest, you could plant 3 weeks worth every three weeks, so every 3 weeks you’ll be planting 9 new lettuce plants until the end of the growing season.
Pumpkins for fresh eating- 1 per week x 26 weeks = 26 pumpkins
At 2 pumpkins per plant, you’ll need a total of 13 plants
Carrots for the root cellar or extra fridge – 2lbs per week x 35 weeks = 70 lbs
At 10lbs per 10′ of row, you’ll need to plant 70′ of carrots.
Onions for fresh eating – 2 per week x 26 weeks = 52 onions + 20 for dehydrating or freezing + 10 for making salsa = 82 onions
For 82 onions, you’ll need to plant 82 seedlings or sets.
This is the basic process I go through every year to figure out how much to plant for our family!
Need more help planning and starting your garden? This list is one of the best resources I have found!
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