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How Much to Grow?

  • January 14, 2023
  • One comment
  • 772 views
  • Rory
I used the area calculations for each vegetable to lay out the garden plot

We’ve come a long ways in 10 years. The majority of days now we are eating full meals right out of our farm: lamb steaks with asparagus, fried eggs and bacon, hearty beef stew. It has ceased to be the novelty it once was. It has become normal most days.

So how much do you need to grow to feed your family for a whole year?

We hit up against this question every year about this time, when we are thinking through our garden plans and thumbing through seed catalogs. We’re getting closer, but we still don’t grow enough to cover all of our needs.

This is a nifty tool I created a few years ago that I keep coming back to. It’s called (for lack of a better title), “How Much to Grow Calculator“.

How much to grow depends on what you eat and how much of it. Just figuring out what your family likes to eat (phase 1) and then what you can competently grow (phase 2) and then what you can reasonably preserve (phase 3) takes many seasons of trial and error.

But once you know what to grow, it’s easy to figure out how much to grow. This tool makes the quantity part of the equation very simple. Just plug in the size and number of servings for each vegetable and it will spit out the number of seeds you need to plant, and how big to space your garden. One more step towards self-sufficiency!

So check it out:

How Much to Grow Calculator
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Rory

Rory Groves moved his family from the city to the country several years ago to begin the journey towards a more durable way of life. Rory and his wife Becca now reside in southern Minnesota where they farm, raise livestock, host workshops, and homeschool their six children. He is the author of Durable Trades: Family-Centered Economies That Have Stood the Test of Time.


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1 comment
  1. Jeffrey Miller says:
    January 15, 2023 at 8:53 am

    Great idea. (I’ve used the farmer’s almanac app for garden planning with some success in the past.)
    Thanks for the reminder to start planning for the garden now! (Now where did I put those steak seeds…)

    Reply

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