give us a clue

[yellow strawberry]

we are just going to start sowing seeds,,some we have done at home,,the question is how much do we need to sow

there is 4 of us,, 2 adults and 2 kids

just dont want to be planted too much nor do i want a veg shortage so if anyone has a rough guesstimate i will be grateful

i am sowing
runner beans
broad beans
mangetout
peas
sugar snap
kale
broccoli
onions
sprouts
squash only want a few of these
toms
cabbage
beetroot
carrot
pak choi
onions
garlic
potatoes
spinache

im doing a salad bed to ,,but not to worried about that

[zazen999]

If I knew that, i would have no waste nor want!!!

It depends on how much you eat. And on the weather, and on pests, and on the soil, and on and on and on..

[Two_Sheds]

Like Zaz said, it depends how much you eat. Nobody else can advise you on that!

Me, I work out roughly how many onions I eat per week, then multiply by 52, then allow an extra 20% for failures.

That's just my example, and it doesn't always work out. Eg, none of my leeks succeeded this year, and I've only just started picking spring onions from last summer's sowing!

[OverWyreGrower]

I would plant as much of each as you can... that allows for failures, pests etc, but if you end up with a bumper harvest, you can freeze it etc or barter it for other stuff.

There are only 2 of us in our house, but I've planted about 400 onions, and about 50 cloves of garlic. We use loads of the stuff! I also plant as many carrots as I can fit in my beds, same with potatoes. I managed with 4 courgette plants last year and had more than enough to last us all summer!

[Pumpkin Becki]

It may be a bit suck it and see as Zazen and Two Sheds say, the nice thing is that if you do have excess harvest, friends and rellies will gratefully receive food parcels, excess seedlings can be sold at village/schools fetes, or you could have an honesty box at the end of your drive (if that's practical) and sell your excess to passers by.

The tricky part is not to have everything maturing at once and be left with periods of no harvest at all. That's where successional sewing comes into play, sewing little and often especially with things like lettuce, carrots and beetroot for example means you can crop for longer without having one enormous glut.

I freeze excess stuff like runner and broad beans, peas, carrots, and then of course there is all the other forms of preserving to experiment with.

And if some stuff ends up on the compost heap, I don't think that matters coz it will be regenerating your soil for the next year.

[Eyren]

just dont want to be planted too much nor do i want a veg shortage

I'm afraid that you're at the mercy of the weather on that front!

Also it depends on how much space you have, and how much you like each type of veg. However, I'll tell you how much I'm going to be aiming to grow this year, for two adults, to give you some ideas of ballpark figures. Some of them I've not grown before, so I'm basically guessing on quantities. However if you can get hold of a copy of "The Half-hour Allotment" by Lia Leendertz, that has a whole section on how much to grow.

N.B. a bed is about 1.2m x 3.3m - 4ft x 11ft - and anything marked * I could happily grow more and freeze them, but have limited space:

runner beans - half a bed (about a dozen plants?)
broad beans - about 3 dozen plants*
mangetout - quarter of a bed
peas - half a bed*
sugar snap - quarter of a bed
kale - 8-12 plants
broccoli - 4-6 plants each of several varieties, spread throughout the year
onions - one bed
sprouts - none (can't stand them! - suggest quantities as per broccoli/kale)
squash only want a few of these - two plants
toms - 8-12 plants of various varieties* - but I could do with growing about four or five times that!
cabbage - see broccoli
beetroot - a dozen or two - still not sure how much I like it
carrot - wherever I can squeeze them in amongst the onions and salad!
pak choi - small patch* (prone to pests )
garlic - about 50 cloves, as we love it!
potatoes - 12 seed potatoes (4 per patio planter) - we don't have anywhere near enough space to be self-sufficient in spuds, and with recent blight levels, maincrops aren't worth the bother
spinach - mainly in the salad bed, successional sowings of about half a square metre at a time

Hope this helps - but really, you just have to try it out and see what grows!

[yellow strawberry]

thats great thanks,,obviously it is a suck it and see kind of thing but i didn't want to be planting and wasting huge amounts so just wanting a rough idea

i will write down what i plant then hopefully i will have a better idea next year

[Pumpkin Becki]

i will write down what i plant then hopefully i will have a better idea next year

Definately, this year will be a real learning curve, but it will all be worth it

[Alice]

That's the way to do it Yellow Strawberry. Write down what you planted, when you planted it, how much you planted and what varieties.
Keep notes of any adjustments you would make to the planting dates and the amount you planted etc.
Over a couple of years you will have it all down to a fine art - well that's the theory.
Happy growing and hope you get great crops for this year.