Javascript required
Skip to content Skip to sidebar Skip to footer

How Much to Plant to Feed a Family of Four

Some of the links below are chapter links, which means I volition earn a commission at no additional cost to you, if yous click through and make a purchase. Regardless, I only link to products we use on our homestead or believe in.

carrots in colander and jars of home canned food on wooden pantry shelves

How much to plant per person for a twelvemonth's worth of food or how many plants per person… 'tis a much-asked question when 1 is trying to harvest and preserve enough nutrient to take their family through an unabridged year without buying it from the store.

How much to plant per person for a year's worth of food of each plant per person

As we shared in Episode #81 with my begetter and 17 Self-Sufficiency Tips from the Great Depression and 1940's  almost all of the food they ate was what they grew and put upwardly themselves, knowing how to grow all your ain food was crucial to survival. This used to be a mode of life, planting and putting up your own food to see you through. It was how the pioneers did it.

Most of united states aren't relying completely on what nosotros institute and preserve ourselves, we're nonetheless supplementing with the grocery shop. But what if y'all did have to survive on what y'all'd planted and put up. How much money would information technology free upward for you and your family unit?

Mind to this mail (but push play beneath) and all our episodes of the
Pioneering Today Podcast while you lot're on the go, scrubbing the business firm, cooking upwardly dinner (tin I get an invite?), or mucking out stalls! I postal service new episodes Friday mornings. You can subscribe via RSS and receive every episode for free.

Or subscribe via Itunes

How much to plant per person for a yr'due south worth of nutrient

I have to exist honest with yous, it's going to vary a bit for every person and family. The average amounts you'll find listed below in this mail are assuming your soil condition is good, average atmospheric condition, and depression pest or disease harm. It's a good starting place, but y'all'll want to programme your crops and garden with these charts and notes to make sure you're planting enough based on what your family actually eats.

Dorsum in the pioneer days as well as the Neat Low, most families grew some of their ain food, and many of them relied solely or near solely on what they'd grown and preserved to feed themselves through the winter.

How much exercise you need to grow per person for a yr?

aka, how much to plant per person.

There are five vegetable crops that we currently abound plenty of that I don't purchase from the store, every bit in ever.

What size garden to feed a family of iv for a year?

Our main annual vegetable garden space is a twenty x 30-foot rectangular bed. Nosotros have a 10 x 20-foot high tunnel where I grow all of our tomato plants.

This by yr we added another twenty x 20-foot garden bed and three 3×twenty-human foot rows for corn.

Your yield per plant can vary past type and growing season, just this is our average and typical yield.

Beans. Ya probably guessed this is i of my favorites. Dark-green beans go well all by themselves every bit your vegetable for a repast, or they'll stretch a casserole or stew. I of our favorite foods is a pot of green beans simmered with a fleck of fatback (aka bacon) thrown in.

Our strain of green edible bean is a pole bean and when allowed to mature on the vine, also doubles as a dried or shell bean. A lot of times these are also referred to as shelly beans.

Dried beans are crawly possum (confession, I've never eaten possum, simply in case there was any confusion there, only when I get excited about something I tend to rhyme) considering they're packed with poly peptide and calories. This is one of the few times where nosotros'll get excited about nutrient having a lot of calories.

cherokee black pole beans on trellis

When you're truly living off of what you can grow, especially if it'southward not livestock (this allows y'all to render down a fat source) it can be difficult to become a substantial corporeality of calories from only vegetables and fruit. A dried edible bean gives you both.

In my feel, a pole edible bean gives you a much larger harvest for the amount of infinite than a bush bean. With our pole beans, I establish approximately a full of thirty plants (iii bean plants on each 6-foot pole with 3 poles to a teepee, so nine plants for each teepee) and from that I can about 50 to 60 jars of green beans, eat them fresh through the season, and save for both seed and as a dry edible bean over 200 beans.

How many bean plants per person?

The average recommendation of edible bean plants per person for a yr'due south worth of nutrient is x to xx plants per person.

This is going to depend on your growing season, the amount of harvest from your bean, and of course, how much your family actually consumes of that food in a year.

Garlic is such an piece of cake crop to grow, especially when you do a fall planting. Most of the winter your garden is lying fallow, the perfect fourth dimension to put the ground to use with garlic. Harvest in the summer and you lot can still use that infinite for late summer and early autumn crops.

Nosotros tend to always double the garlic in a recipe at our house, just maxim. For the states, about fifty bulbs of garlic accept us all the mode through the twelvemonth. If y'all want your garlic to last a full twelvemonth learn how to harvest garlic for long-term storage

How many garlic plants per person?

The average recommended amount is xv bulbs per person, but with garlic, I say err on the side of having also many (considering that's really non ever the example) Plus, garlic can be used medicinally and also fed to livestock. We give a few cloves of garlic every week to our piglets and many people too supplement with garlic for their chickens.

Take hold of my guide on How to Plant Garlic here

chitting seed potatoes on a tray before planting

How many potato plants per person?

The boilerplate recommendation is 15 to 20 potato plants per person. With good for you soil, yous can await about 6 to 10 potatoes per plant or l lbs of potatoes from 2 lbs of seed potatoes.

If you plant a minimum of fifteen potato plants and go a low yield of 5 potatoes per constitute, that's 75 potatoes, equalling approximately 6 potatoes a calendar week. I don't eat half dozen potatoes a week and so this is where keeping rails of how much you eat of specific foods is more important than following a recommended boilerplate.

Make certain you're picking the correct storage variety of potatoes and type for your area. Find those here in How to Plant and Abound Potatoes (In Containers or the Ground)

Recall your yield volition depend on how healthy your soil is and no affliction takes over peculiarly bane. Read more on Preventing & Treating Early Bane of Tomato & Potato Plants

Three large tomatoes in woman's hands

How many lycopersicon esculentum plants per person?

Tomatoes. Tomatoes are probably the most versatile of all the vegetables (I know, technically it's a fruit). From salsa, stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, ketchup, pizza sauce, marinara, tomato soup, come across, tomatoes go with merely about every repast and in betwixt.

The average recommendation is 5 lycopersicon esculentum plants per person.I grow 18 lycopersicon esculentum plants for our family unit of four and am able to can close to 40 jars of salsa, 10 quarts of stewed tomatoes, and 25 jars of tomato sauce.

For those of us planning on growing plenty tomatoes for a yr, that means nosotros'll be preserving them, and when yous're preserving, paste tomatoes are the proper name of the game. While I dearest scarlet tomatoes and sliced tomato sandwiches, paste tomatoes are going to conduct y'all much farther with canning and making your sauces.

Pickling cucumber, make sure you choice a pickling cucumber variety for preserving. We found about 6 to nine nine cucumber plants provide us with enough for a year.

Winter squash, we're able to grow and preserve enough wintertime squash to accept us through the entire year. We practice several varieties, commonly 5 to half-dozen plants of each type.

If you're growing your food with the goal of having enough to eat for the whole twelvemonth, you lot're going to have to preserve it.

Summer squash is quite prolific. In fact, we have a joke around here that when zucchini is on, don't leave your automobile windows down or your doors unlocked, or you might notice a surprise of zucchini.

The general recommendation is 1 plant per person for summer squash.

Wintertime squash is awesome considering you can utilize root cellar techniques for your nutrient storage. For more than info on using root cellar techniques without a root cellar check out ten Tips for Storing Vegetables w/out a Root Cellar Long Term

I take successfully stored spaghetti squash in our kitchen with root cellar techniques from the end of August until mid-March.

The full general recommendation for wintertime squash is 2 to three plants per person.

Go on in mind, these are averages, you lot'll want to adjust for crops your family eats more or less of.

How many plants to plant per person

Catch our Costless How Much to Plant Per Person in the Garden Worksheets & Charts!

  • bean plants -bush 15 to 20 plants
    pole 10 to xv plants
  • brassica family unit (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, etc.) two to 3 plants
  • corn – 15 plants
  • cucumber – 2 to three plants
  • garlic- 15 bulbs
  • onion – 15 bulbs
  • peas – 20 to 30 plants
  • peppers- two plants
  • potatoes – 15 to 20 plants
  • tomatoes- 5 plants
  • Summer squash- 1 to 2 plants
  • Winter squash- 1 to ii plants

Best plants for poly peptide and calorie content

One thing you want to consider when trying to grow your own food is having a food source that is high in protein and calories, which can exist hard to establish with just vegetables.

Dried peas and beans fit this bill. Make sure you accept at least one or the other as 1 of your staple crops when growing enough food for a whole year for your family.

Resources for Planting and Preserving a Years Worth of Food

Grow a Year's Worth of Nutrient for Your Family

Increment your harvest and maximize the infinite you have using organic and natural methods to raise a year's worth of the fruits and vegetables your family unit enjoys with Melissa's step-by-step plans and charts with The Family unit Garden Plan: Enhance a Yr's Worth of Healthy and Sustainable Food

Get your Gratuitous re-create of my worksheets that will help you determine what your family'due south produce needs are, how much you should plant, and how to plan your garden space accordingly by clicking hither

How to Program Your Best Garden & Harvest for a Years Worth of Food

How Many Fruit & Berry Plants Per Person

There you have it, everything you need to help y'all institute out how much to plant for a twelvemonth'southward worth of food.

how much to plant per person for a year's worth of food

weatherburnalaing.blogspot.com

Source: https://melissaknorris.com/podcast/how-much-to-plant-for-a-years-worth-of-food/