I've been looking for some kind of guideline about this for a while now, in an effort to plan my garden more efficiently. Even though I've been gardening for years I always seem to have way too much of some things and wish I had grown more of something else. Hope this will be helpful to someone else out there, as well!
Sandy
http://gardening.about.com/od/vegetable1/a/How-Much-Plant.htm
How much of each thing should you plant?
Sandy, that is a wonderful easy to follow guide...thank you!
That is a goog looking chart, not unlike what i plant out as a basic crop layout.. freezing, drying, canning in the home allows for a much larger garden ad variety through the year..
that does look like a very good starter layout.
-joe-
Hmmm, I plant much more than that, but then I freeze a lot of my produce. Interesting!
I agree, Greenhouse_Gal -- I think the suggestions on this chart are pretty much for eating fresh.
Sandy
That makes sense!
Nice chart, but we eat far more vegetables than they suggest. For instance, they suggest just 5 broccoli plants. I have 75!
Guess we are the exception to the "rule"
Honeybee, that's a lot of broccoli! Do you freeze it, then? (or how the heck many people are you feeding?)
;-)
Sandy
Hi, Weedwhacker (Sandy) - sorry for the delay in replying, but my van broke down, I had it towed, my son-in-law fixed it (he's a tech for Toyota) - then he gave me bad news, which meant I had to buy a new-to-me car! WHEW - that was a busy few days not to mention EXPENSIVE!
So, to answer your questions: Hubby and I live alone, but we love veggies, especially broccoli. I do freeze lots of what we grow. It's rather nice to be able to walk through the produce department at the supermarket and not need anything :)
Honeybee, that sounds like a pretty good excuse for a delay in your reply; truth to tell, I've been so busy reading all the "breaking news" posts that I hadn't noticed! Sorry about your car trouble, vehicles can be such a pain... and nothing like having to go out and buy one unexpectedly, that's a bummer. Lucky you for having a son-in-law that can work on it, though -- I guess it wouldn't be practical for me to bring him my 4-Runner!
I'm going to grow broccoli this year for the first time in a long time and definitely want to freeze some; I actually think I'm going to have to get another freezer, the one I have got totally filled up this year (largely due to numerous batches of zucchini bread that I stockpiled). I've convinced DH that it would be practical to get a 2nd one as a backup, since a few years back we had our freezer totally stuffed full and it died on us, on a Sunday of course, and we had to do some scrambling to replace it. Also with 2 of them we wouldn't have to have them both going all the time, once things were getting used up we could unplug one. Ha ha, I should have been a lawyer! Note to self on the broccoli -- I must be diligent with the BT, I really hate it when the worms float to the top of the cooking water. Is that what you use (BT, I mean) ? It really is nice to have our own produce dept, isn't it!
Sandy
Sandy, we have two full freezers and a smaller chest freezer, and we actually went and installed a generator because our electricity goes out on us sometimes, for a day or more even, and we couldn't face the idea of losing all the organic produce, deer meat, and chickens and geese we've socked away.
I just noticed that Territorial Seeds is carrying a 10' long row cover, with the cloth already attached to the hoops and all you have to do is stick the ends of the hoops in the ground; I'm thinking of getting one for my broccoli to avoid pests. It's $35, I think, but heck, I spend that on sillier things than that. You could also try silver mulch, which I use for my squash and am planning to try on my eggplant to foil the flea beetles.
Leslie
Good idea about the row cover - I use it to cover lots of stuff anyway, to keep my cats from digging the plants up (had to replant my onions and carrots a couple of times last year... if they aren't digging, they're rolling around on them!). I've only just recently heard about the silver mulch, have to check that out, too.
Sandy
Sandy - I keep BT on hand, but for the most part between the birds and the black wasps, I don't have much of a caterpillar problem. Wish I knew what would eat slugs! They were a real problem last spring.
I purchased the largest upright freezer I could find:
http://www.frigidaire.com/products/kitchen-appliances/freezers/glfh21f8hw
Some of the reviews for this freezer were unfavorable, but I could not find another that I liked as well as this one, so I took a chance. I'm so glad I did because (so far) it's been no trouble at all. I purchased it just before Thanksgiving last year, and the first thing I did was put three 20lb turkeys in it. Hubby and I love turkey, and the only time of the year you can buy it at a good (cheap) price is in November. We've already eaten one of them.
Be sure to blanch your broccoli before freezing it. I made the mistake of not doing so the year-before-last, and it didn't taste good. I cut the heads into stalks first.Three to four minutes in boiling water is all I do. Then I put the stalks into plastic bags and pop them into the freezer side of the refrigerator until they are frozen - then I put them in the big freezer.
I know one is supposed to cool the stalks in cold water, but I'm concernd that some of the nutrients will get away by doing so. I don't do very many at once, and have not had a problem with the contents of the refridgerator doing it this way.
Thanks for posting the link, Weedwhacker. I grow a lot more tomatoes than that. We must be tomato freaks of something. I guess this would be a rule of thumb kind of thing.
Here's another article on vegetable yields, as well as some additional information on days to 1st harvest, days to derminate, etc. Again, I think the "plants per person" probably refers to fresh use, not allowing for canning, freezing, etc.
http://www.ksre.ksu.edu/library/hort2/mf315.pdf