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Daox 03-03-09 10:43 AM

What to grow for a family of four
 
This is exactly what I was looking for a while back and I've finally found it. This is a chart that gives you an idea of how much to plant for a family of four. It will be quite helpful in planning out our garden come this spring!

What to Grow for a Family of Four

Higgy 03-03-09 01:10 PM

Wow...that's a big bloody garden. I'm guessing that's to feed them for the full year.

SVOboy 03-03-09 02:33 PM

When are you planning to start popping out the little ones?

TimJFowler 03-04-09 11:36 AM

Wow, that's a lot of veggie garden!

I ran some quick numbers and on the short end that would be 777 linear feet of traditional garden beds. If you planted densely (Square Foot gardening or Wide-Row Vegetable Gardening) that could probably fit into about 130 square feet.

Hmm, maybe that is more doable than I thought. We already have about 105 square feet of garden. Now I need to amend the heck out the soil. Time to turn the compost!

basjoos 04-03-09 12:55 PM

By "squash", they must be referring to summer squash. 3 plants, when in full production, would be enough to keep a family of 4 fed with some surplus for freezing/canning. Of course, they would only be in full production for a month or two until the combined assault of the squash borers and squash bugs takes them out.

For winter squash, which is easily stored, you can plant a lot more, ideally enough to keep you in winter squash until the next season's crop comes in. I am still feasting on Seminole squash from last fall's crop and still have 1/3 of the crop left in storage to go. This squash can be stored for a year, and this season I will be planting more than the 2 seminole plants I grew last summer so I will have enough stored squash to keep me going through late summer when the next crop comes in. In my location, 1 seminole plant will produce 80 squash fruit.

Ryland 04-03-09 02:45 PM

That seems to be about 1/4 1/3 of what my mom normally plants, but she does store alot, I was kind of wondering my self what to plant this year for 2-3 people, mostly going to go for the low matenice stuff like spinach, asparagus, rhubarb, not sure how it will go.

Higgy 04-03-09 03:50 PM

Ryland, are you talking about stuff you can store or just in general? I found carrots and beans REALLY easy and you can store beans in the freezer if you boil them and package them nice and tight. Tomatoes can be tricky but I didn't have too much of a problem with them last year and it was my first time with tomatoes. Cuccumbers are easy too.

My grandparents (may they rest in peace) and inlaws have huge gardens. My inlaws make TONS of tomatoes...they're italian so they make lots of sauce with it. They make enough to make it through the whole year including having everyone over quite often.

Ryland 04-03-09 08:07 PM

for the most part my mom cans tomato juice, cooked down and put in quart jars, some salsa too, pickles, but onions are stored fresh and are still being used right now in April, same thing with potatoes, squash, apples, cabbage, dry beans, carrots, all of those things look and taste as good as they did 6 months ago, without canning or freezing, she freezes things like straw berries, some cider also gets canned in to half gallon jars but it also gets fermented, add a packet of yeast and let it sit in the living room in a carboy, how easy is that?
alot of it is eaten fresh too.

Higgy 04-04-09 08:30 AM

Ok...I've got to pick your brain...how does she keep dry beans and carrots until april without freezing or canning? Cause I want to learn how she does that. We do it with our onions but I don't know how to do it with other vegetables (my grandparents brough belgian onions back to Canada a loooong time ago when they went over to visit relatives so that's what I'm still using...which is kinda cool when you think about it).

We freeze our beans, but they taste just as fresh...we had some last night and they were goo-oood. My wife makes a lot of salsa too and cans the rest of the tomatoes. My mom still needs to teach me how to pickle cuccumbers.

Higgy 04-21-09 11:51 AM

Hey Ryland, you never told me how your mom keeps potatoes, squash, apples, cabbage, dry beans, carrots stored fresh for 6 months. I NEED TO KNOW THIS! My life depends on it. You don't want me to die do you?!? :D

Seriously, I'd really like to know how she does this cause I would LOVE to learn how. I'd love to keep carrots and stuff for that long without them going bad.


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