how much of what??

[bretty666]

hi all, im new to this gardening stuff but i love it, only thing is, i have 21 butternut plants, 75 sweetcorn plants doing great, 30 tata plants, 60 leeks ,15 toms, 100s of turnips and parsnips, and loads more of bits of everything but my point and question is, how much of what should we be growing on a per person basis per year???
i have 17000m² of land around my house in south brittany france with a racing stable with 20 odd horses in there for a neighbour , so space and manure are of no problem, all my plants seem to be doing good apart from gold beet and french beans, but the beans were old seeds/beans,
does anyone know of a ratio of the number of plants (the obvious kinds of veg)needed for the number of crops harvested, per person, per year, i know this sounds quite vague and i hope i am understood,

[Hazel at the Hill]

I've found this natty guide to yields per plant/10' row - the next thing you have to work out is how much you actually eat of each!

http://www.suffolkherbs.com/assets/E...-YEILD-web.pdf

[veggiechicken]

I'd double-like that ^^^^ if only they knew how to spell YIELD
As for quantity per person, if you're veggie, you'll probably eat more than a carnivore. Also consider whether you want to freeze/pickle/ preserve your veg or just eat it fresh.
If you grow too much do you have an outlet for it - friends, neighbours, local shop, market etc.
There really is no single answer to your question

[stella]

Also how much time do you have. As the harvest season progresses I find I spend almost as much time in the kitchen as in the garden. Everything has to be preserved as well as maintaining the garden and still planting preparing for the winter crops.

[Mikey]

Before I start each year, I sit down and make an assessment of the previous year and whether I had enough, too much not enough of what I wanted. In my first year, I looked at my shopping basket from the supermarket, and multiplied up what I had per week to per month and year.

So potatoes for example we ate a 2.5kg bag of pots a week, this equated to approximately 1.5 haulms so I multiplied up by 40, assuming that I'm going to have 4 weeks holidays a year and some weeks we'll be busy and takeaways will be more abundant. If you do this with all your veg, and look at the seasonality of some veg like lettuce for example, I eat a lot during the summer but not much during the winter. Then some others like Strawberries which I like to make jam with so I need a lot more of these when they are available.

Now look at the supermarkets and if space or time is limited look at what is expensive in the shops that you like to eat and grow more of these and what is cheaper grow less of. Onions for example, I grow some but I don't go mad as I tend to store them. So in principal if I'm storing them or the supermarket is there is very little difference in the flavour. Hence some space is given but generally more for spring and salad onions rather than onion sets.

Making a spreadsheet is the best way to maximise your own choices, then after the end of the first year evaluate how well or bad you did and make adjustments. Always leave a little room to try something completely different as thats all part of the fun of gardening.

[KevinM67]

Fantastic post Mikey

[Two_Sheds]

how much of what should we be growing on a per person basis per year?

It's always better to have too much than not enough, and some crops WILL fail so you need something else to eat as backup.

Change the way you menu-plan. Aim to eat what is ready on the plot, not what you fancy. If that means peas at every meal, so be it Freeze what you can't eat right away.

So, numbers: a lot of it you gain through experience. You may decide that while chard grows extremely well, you don't like it. So only grow one of those, to shred into curries.

Sweetcorn will get scoffed, whether I grow ten or 100 plants. Same with peas.

With some things, I try and do some basic maths. I think I'll eat one cabbage a week, but it only grows April to Dec (9 months = 36 weeks = 36 plants. Plus a few extra for the slugs, let's sow 50 seeds then).

Onions, I can get through 2 a week, so I want to sow (52 weeks x 2 onions = 104 onion sets)

It's not set in stone, it's just a rough guide, but it helps with the initial planning & sowing.

[alldigging]

If you grow more find people you can barter it with for other stuff!

Learn to preserve.

[bretty666]

thanks for the replies; very helpful, it took me a long time to find them though? how do i find my posts? i had to search my name in the search bar then found it like that after searching throught the forums? thank you all

[veggiechicken]

Go to Settings/scroll down to General Settings/Messaging and Notification and there's a dropdown box for Default Subscription Mode. I have "Daily using email"
Hope this makes sense!!

[rustylady]

Go to Settings/scroll down to General Settings/Messaging and Notification and there's a dropdown box for Default Subscription Mode. I have "Daily using email"
Hope this makes sense!!

See at the top of the page where it says "welcome bretty666" - just click on your name and it will take you to your own profile. Then you can just click on "view all started threads" or "view latest posts".

I find the best way is to log on every day and check all the latest posts

[Two_Sheds]

how do i find my posts?

check all the latest posts

Yep, green button at the top, called "What's New?"

it doesn't always give you all unread posts though: it seems to be a random selection

[bretty666]

aha! i did it! with a little help obviously, i dont get time to check every day unfortunately, and if i did id spend all my time on here! id rather not go down the notification route thanks as my emails are purely,,,,,,,,,,emails? bank, work, that sort of stuff, , but thank you very much for your help, its much appreciated

[rustylady]

Well maybe not every day, but hope you will check in here quite often. It's a lovely forum.