gardening for self-sufficiency

[WildOlive]

Do you grow most of your own food? I am interested in knowing how much of which things you grow. I tripled our garden size this year and it is still way too small, I am realizing.

[HomeyT]

ideally i'd like to have enough to store/can/freeze for winter...but i am realizing this is not something that happens overnight (or in one year)! so each year we do more. it's only my second year planting our own garden.

the one thing i am getting good at is storing berries. we have a huge raspberry patch. and we also pick wild blue berries. i also pick strawberries at a local patch. we'll probably fill half our freezer with them. also, we are joining this fruit group that sells in bulk organic 'local' fruit. we'll store these and hoping not to use the grocery store for too much fruit over the winter. i think using these sources will help us as we slowly build up our own garden/resources.

[Macky]

It depends what you like to eat as to how much of it you'll grow. :shrug I can give you my numbers, but they may not prove true for your family.

Tomatoes
20 to 30 determinate plants. Fresh eating, sauce (canned) and diced (frozen).

Green beans
If planting all bush beans, we need about 120 feet of row (4" seed spacing) to supply us for 12 months. Yields vary with variety and climate, of course. I plant a mix of green, yellow and purple. This year, I have less bush beans and more pole and runner, but the yield is estimated to be roughly the same or more. I blanch and freeze green beans.

Sweet corn
120 cobs will do us for 9 months; frozen corn loses it's sweetness in the freezer after that point approximately. If you really like corn, though, you'll need more (like my in-laws).

Broccoli and cauliflower
I have 60 plants total in this year. They're used fresh as well as blanched and frozen.

Onions and leeks
We probably use 3 or 4 onions per week on average in this house. I've got 100 in the garden this year. I should probably double that next year, now that I've finally got the hang of growing them. We also grow leeks, but I'm not sure how many we need for a full year as this is the first year I've successfully gotten them to size up. I've got 54 out there right now.

Carrots
A 42-foot row of nantes type carrots keep us in generous supply until January. I've planted 66 feet this year and am going to try storing some in sand to see if they'll keep longer.

Potatoes
We plant 10 lbs of seed potatoes, but that doesn't last us more than a few months. There's no point in us planting more as we can't seem to store them any longer than that. I believe my MIL (they're addicted to potatoes, btw) plants 20 lbs or more of see potatoes every year. They have ideal storage, though. That's something we need to work on; then we'll plant more.

Celery
I've got 18 plants out there. First year they've done well, so I don't know whether this is a good amount yet. They will be chopped and frozen for winter.

Brussels
First year growing them. They'll likely be for fresh eating only (for Thanksgiving likely).

Beets
I only grow them for pickling. Every two years I grow a 10-20' row, depending on the space I have.

Asparagus
24 plants yield enough for us to be sick of it in the spring from fresh eating. We're not terribly fond eating it from frozen, though it's fine in casserole-type dishes. I do freeze a dozen or so meal-sized packages.

Peas
We've got 110' of peas this year; most we've ever planted. It's likely not enough – this family inhales peas. :giggle I've only had two big pickings so far and I'm already sick of shelling peas. It's certainly not letting my sprained thumb heal. For the variety I'm growing, per pound (16 oz) of peas picked... roughly 6 oz are peas and 10 oz are pods. To give you an idea, I've got about 7.5 lbs of peas in the freezer now from the first two pickings from 110 feet of row. There are lots more out there still to mature. It's not a lot considering we use at least two cups worth per meal (as a side).

Winter squash
I like to have about half a dozen large pumpkins for the kitchen, but I plant more so we can carve in the fall and give some away. I like to be conservative and figure two large pumpkins per plant (any more is bonus to give away).

Peppers
We use a decent amount of bell peppers in the kitchen, but our climate is really not hot enough to grow red ones. I can grow green ones if I start them early enough. If I were to grow all the green ones we use in a year, I'd probably need about 20 healthy plants and a good long summer. Triple that if we lived in a climate more suitable to ripening red peppers.

We have raspberries, but only grow enough for fresh eating. Our family doesn't really like frozen fruit. We planted a new strawberry patch this year.

Rhubarb
We've got 6 mammoth plants that are at least 20 years old and well-established, so I have no idea how to translate that to typical plants. We can pick tender stalks well into summer. I make pies, crisps and for the first time this year, jam. I'm the only one of us that likes rhubarb for some reason. The others are crazy.

Herb quantities will vary GREATLY depending on your cooking style. I usually have three big clumps each of oregano and thyme, three rosemary plants, six sage plants and as much as I have room for of dill (this year about 40 plants) and parsley (usually about a dozen huge plants). We've also got a couple of established clumps of chives that come back every year.

There's masses of veggies we don't grow because I just don't have the time. These are our staples. Throughout the winter, I still buy from the grocery store, even if the garden has done well... peppers, fresh greens, fresh cabbage, fruit, ginger root and garlic (growing next year). Erin is allergic to apples, otherwise we'd grow those. There's not a whole lot of other fruit, besides berries, that you can grow here without a lot of effort (winter protection, etc.).