How Much Does a Family of 2 Spend on Groceries

Then, you desire to start a garden, but not sure how big the garden should be to be able to fully back up your family. This is a common question for beginner gardeners or someone who are looking to aggrandize their garden.

The truth is, there is no single correct answer when it comes to deciding vegetable garden size. Some sources say 100 foursquare anxiety per person is the magic number, but that tin't be right considering every family unit has different needs and preferences when it comes to food. Also, plants vary in size, and so information technology depends on what vegetables you grow.

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

How Many Vegetables to Plant?

Crops	Harvest Needed/Person (lbs)	Harvest Needed (lbs)	Avg. Yield per 100 feet (lb)	Plants Spacing (in)	Row Length (ft)	Plants Needed
Artichoke	3	3	50	48	vi	2
Asparagus	two	2	thirty	xviii	7	5
Basil	0.5	0.5	45	14	two	2
Lima Beans (bush)	3	3	25	four	12	36
Lima Beans (pole)	3	3	50	16	6	5
Snap Beans (bush-league)	15	15	120	four	13	39
Snap Beans (pole)	15	xv	150	6	10	20
Soy Beans	15	fifteen	50	10	30	36
Beets	three.five	iii.5	150	2	3	xviii
Bok Choy	three	3	130	8	3	five
Broccoli	eight	8	100	eighteen	viii	6
Brussel Sprouts	6	6	75	18	8	6
Cabbage	15	fifteen	150	18	10	7
Carrots	10	10	100	x	x	12
Cauliflower	9	9	100	18	nine	6
Celery	four	four	lx	8	seven	eleven
Cilantro	0.25	0.25	50	viii	one	two
Collards	two	2	100	12	ii	2
Corn	25	25	fourscore	16	32	24
Cucumbers	8	8	120	24	7	four
Dill	0.25	0.25	60	fourteen	1	ane
Eggplant	four	iv	100	20	iv	3
Fennel	1	i	ninety	12	2	2
Garlic	1	1	25	six	iv	8
Jerusalem Artichoke	one.5	one.v	150	sixteen	ane	ane
Kale	1	1	100	12	1	1
Kohlrabi	1.5	one.5	75	6	2	4
Leek	one	1	45	four	3	9
Lettuce	half dozen	vi	fifty	xiv	12	11
Melons	6	6	110	42	six	2
Mustard	i	one	l	6	2	iv
Okra	1	1	100	sixteen	1	one
Onions	8	8	100	4	viii	24
Parsley	0.25	0.25	30	8	1	2
Parsnip	3	3	100	4	3	9
Peas	3	3	40	4	8	24
Peppers	iii	iii	threescore	16	v	4
Potatoes	25	25	100	12	25	25
Pumpkins	ten	x	100	42	x	3
Radish	2	2	xl	iv	5	xv
Rhubarb	4	four	100	4	4	12
Rutabaga	1.5	1.5	120	vi	2	4
Spinach	3	three	40	12	viii	8
Summer Squash	10	10	150	24	7	4
Winter Squash	6	vi	100	32	6	3
Strawberry	13	xiii	140	20	ten	half dozen
Sweet Potatoes	three	3	100	14	3	iii
Swiss Chard	iii	3	85	ten	4	5
Tomatoes	24	24	100	30	24	ten
Cherry Tomatoes	17	17	150	xvi	12	9
Turnips	v	5	75	six	seven	fourteen
Watermelons	12	12	200	threescore	vi	two

How Much Garden Space Do Yous Need?

To find the ideal size of your vegetable garden, please cheque the box on plants y'all want to grow from the list to a higher place. Nosotros'll so summate the required size automatically.

Select at to the lowest degree 1 plant to become the number.

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

1. Small-scale kitchen garden or a fully self-reliant garden?

What'south the purpose of your garden?

Is it just a small-scale kitchen garden to grow fresh food and reduce your shopping budget, or do you lot desire to exist fully self-reliant from your garden?

Our calculator assumes the average numbers. It won't be way off if you're slightly below or above the boilerplate, but if you're on the extreme sides, yous will need to adjust the number accordingly.

If you haven't started your kickoff garden yet, our best advice is to just use the outcome from the calculator, it's usually good plenty. Then, increase or decrease the number of plants you grow in the adjacent year depending on the result from your previous year.

ii. How many people are you trying to feed?

Obviously, if you lot are a unmarried person, you won't need the same size garden as a family of four. And if you are a family of four, you'll need a smaller garden than a family unit of six. Which is why we allow you to change the family unit size in our calculator.

But what might non be obvious is the number of people outside your immediate family that yous might need to feed throughout the year.

In our get-go years of gardening, I didn't retrieve this part through. I would only consider the people nether my roof and failed to realize how frequently my mother-in-law had dinner with us throughout the week and didn't include her in my calculations. You can guess the residuum of the story.

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

Other than feeding an extended family unit, if you entertain or participate in potlucks regularly, you should also take this into consideration when planning your garden. Similarly, if yous desire to sell some fresh produce for extra income.

3. Are you lot eating fresh or preserving your harvest?

If y'all are planning on eating fresh produce directly out of your garden, you won't demand as large of a garden as someone who is planning on preserving the harvest.

Our calculator assumes that y'all will preserve your harvest and utilise it throughout the year. And by the fashion, you should consider preserving your harvest if you're not yet. You volition need more produce, simply this allows y'all to cut groceries budget throughout the year or even eliminate information technology completely.

Okay, but what if you're sure not going to preserve some nutrient, and just want some fresh tomatoes for the sandwich every now and then? Well, in that case you don't demand a calculator, just plant ane love apple plant.

4. Volition you exist succession planting?

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

For example, if you want to abound peas and green beans in the same yr, you could do this in the aforementioned garden bed. Peas tin be planted in February (depending on your planting zone), and green beans are planted subsequently and love the nitrogen peas add to the soil. Basically, it's a skilful thought to institute green beans after peas in the same infinite.

When the peas are finished, use the aforementioned infinite to establish green beans. This means you wouldn't need as large of a garden space because they are grown in succession instead of simultaneously.

If you are working with limited gardening space, consider succession planting to be able to abound more than in the infinite you have.

v. Do you plan on having multiple garden beds?

We abound multiple gardens on our property per season. Instead of using 1 big garden plot, nosotros break down our needs into multiple gardens.

This doesn't really take anything to practice straight with the total size (or does it?), just it's something y'all need to take into consideration when planning your garden.

If you desire to separate the bed for each plant, you should become the size needed for each constitute on its ain past check-marking only i plant from the table above and take a notation of the garden size for that 1 establish. Then echo the aforementioned stride for dissimilar plants.

There are also other reasons to separate garden beds. For example, I have one garden bed for my family, one for my extended family unit, and one to sell produce.

Y'all can also have one garden surface area for plants that are good companions, like the iii sisters garden.

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

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

6. How many times in the year volition you lot be planting?

Technically, you can start iii unlike gardens per year.

You might want to abound a spring garden filled with lettuce, spinach, cabbage, and peas. And so a summer garden filled with tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and peppers. Finally, stop out the yr past growing a fall garden with cabbage, squash, and root vegetables.

This is more tiring than having i garden per year or two, which most gardeners do. Just if you practise it right, you tin salvage a lot of garden expanse, fifty-fifty if you plan on preserving the harvest.

To calculate the total garden size, y'all'll need to do three unlike calculations, each calculation for plants that you will abound on different planting flavor and utilize the largest number of all three. That'south your garden size.

7. Which vegetable do you lot like the most?

This may seem obvious, merely if you like a sure food, you lot'll exist more probable to eat it more than the boilerplate person.

Our calculators use the average corporeality of vegetables that a person swallow. So if you like to eat tomatoes, for case, you lot might want to establish more tomatoes.

Nevertheless, ane affair to remember is that different constitute needs different total area to grow properly.

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

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

8. Different gardening methods require different garden size

Yous may have heard of many different gardening methods. From the traditional garden bed with rows of crops, raised beds, container gardening, keyhole garden, square-foot gardening, to the more advanced methods similar hydroponics, aquaponics, or the infinite-efficient vertical gardening.

These methods have their ain set up of pros and cons, so get ahead and read the link above to compare each method and find which one is all-time for yous.

Every bit for the estimator in this page, information technology tin can be used for the traditional in-ground garden and raised beds, but you'll take to make adjustments for other gardening methods.

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

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