How Many Plants Do I Need?

The trickiest part of gardening is figuring out how many plants you need. This is something that really isn’t a simple answer, but I’ll try to provide some guidelines as a starting point that you can run with.

Part of the reason there isn’t a simple answer is that the amount of vegetables any one plant produces varies depending on if it’s the beginning of the harvest, peak harvest, or the end of the harvest season. For instance, for the first few weeks tomatoes start ripening, you would be lucky to pick one tomato each week. Flash forward 2 months, and you’ll be picking 16 off of a single plant. A good starting point is to think of the average weekly harvest, and make sure that you plant enough to enjoy, but don’t become overburdened with (unless you plan on donating any extras!).

If you’ve browsed the Resources tab, you may have seen this article dicussing the number of plants to feed a

family of four: https://www.bestpickreports.com/blog/post/gardening-to-feed-your-family-year-round/

Here’s what the Best Pick Reports article recommends for quantities:

Beets – 20- to 30-foot-long row

Bell peppers – 10 to 15 plants

Broccoli – 12 to 15 plants

Carrots – 12- to 16-foot-long row

Corn – 40 to 50 plants

Cucumbers – 4 to 6 plants or 2 to 4 vines

Eggplant – 6 to 8 plants

Kale – 15- to 20-foot-long row

Lettuce – 20- to 30-foot-long row

Melons – 4 to 6 plants

Potatoes – 40 to 50 plants

Spinach – 30- to 40-foot-long row

Squash – 4 to 6 plants

Tomatoes – 5 to 8 plants

Zucchini – 4 to 8 plants

I really like this article because it gives you a range of quantities for each crop (assuming a family of four). On the last blog post, we listed and ranked all the veggies we eat into four categories: 1 – eat once a month, 2 – eat a few times a month, 3 – each every week, 4 – eat all that is available or buy extra for storing / canning

Our pantry last fall: full of green tomatoes waiting to ripen over the winter

In the Best Pick Reports article, assume that the lower end of the range counts as a “2” on our ranking. The upper end of the range would count as a “3” in rank. Any vegetables with a ranking of “1” cut the lower end of the range in half. Any vegetables with a ranking of “4” double the higher end of the range.

Let’s use Zucchini (4 – 8 plants) as an example.

Rank 1: 4 plants / 2 = 2 plants for a family of four, if you would eat it once a month

Rank 2: 4 plants for a family of four, if you would eat it a few times a month

Rank 3: 8 plants for a family of four, if you would eat it every week

Rank 4: 16 plants for a family of four, if you would eat all that is available or want extra for freezing / preserving.

Make sense? If you’ve been following along with previous blog posts, the next step, is to take your “shopping list” of plants and their rankings, and use this formula to come up with how many of each plant you need.

Here’s what I came up with for my list (family of two):

I hope this has given you a sense of direction and hope that you can feed your family, even if you don’t have a large yard! If you have any questions, or feel like I’ve left something out– please ask! Comment and I will reply as soon as I can to help you gain confidence and get growing!

What’s next dear readers? Lets turn this shopping list into a garden plan! There are lots of things to consider with your garden plan, but I’ll lay out the basics to get you going. I’ll also make some individual posts to dive deeper into the details of what I find important– if that’s your kind of thing.

Happy gardening!