How Many Plants Per Person

P.s. maybe off topic but how many extra seeds seedlings of each type veg do you plan for, is anyone willing to share how many plants in each category you will plant out, what you expect the yield to be from that if you have an idea, ( x plants will feed y plus canning ), and are you growing extra for friends this year? ( Seedlings, hard to get here, and they've gotten really pricey.)

Soose wrote:P.s. maybe off topic but how many extra seeds seedlings of each type veg do you plan for, is anyone willing to share how many plants in each category you will plant out, what you expect the yield to be from that if you have an idea, ( x plants will feed y plus canning ), and are you growing extra for friends this year? ( Seedlings, hard to get here, and they've gotten really pricey.)

I plant for 2 people, plus safe canning, dehydrating or freezing and gifting to kiddies.

Summer
Peppers: 14-16 (2 seeds for each)
Tomatoes: 25-30 (2 seeds each)
Potatoes: 3 squares
Sweet potatoes: 2 large storage totes
Eggplant: 1 or 2 (2 seeds each)
Cucumbers: 32 (2 seeds each)
Pole beans:64 (1 seed each direct sow) 2 crops
Cow peas: 54 (1 seed each direct sow) 2 crops
Winter squash: 4-5 (2 seeds each)
Summer squash: 2-4 (2 seeds each)
Gourd: 2-3 (2 seeds each)
Cantaloupe: 2-3 (2 seeds each)
Herbs: 7-12 (2-3 seeds each)
Lettuce: 8 (3-4 seeds each)
Fun, unusual or experimental: Varies each year. Cotton, corns, okra, sunflowers, watermelon, etc.

Winter
Potatoes: 3-9 squares
Cilantro: (2 seeds each)
Garlic: ~50
Swiss chard: 4-8 (2 seeds each)
Lettuce: 8 (3-4 seeds each)
Broccoli: 6 (2 seeds each)
Baby Bok choy:8 (2 seeds each)
Cauliflower: 6 (2 seeds each)
Carrots: 2-4 squares (2-4 seeds each) Direct sow

Perennial
Strawberries: 8 squares
Walking onions: 3 squares
New Zealand spinach: 1-4 squares

Potted trees:
1 Meyers lemon
1 Lime
2 Pink Lemonade blueberries
1 cherry
1 Asian pear
1 other pear
1 Nectarine

Planted tree:
27 year old Washington navel orange

Soose wrote:

sanderson wrote:I plant for 2 people, plus ... 

Exactly the type of info I wanted, Sandrrson -- thank you so much!

For others , try this idea .. 
Write out a 52 week year set of squares and decide what crops you will be eating week by week according as to how the seed packets say sow , plant out and harvest .  Then calculate how many seeds you need to sow every fortnight to get that amount of produce so you don't end up with a massive glut of unusable fruits & veg at the wrong time of the season /year .

We've done this for 35 years , it's worked really well for us as we grow early summer & late summer onions , loads of garlic , leeks & four seasons of carrots & a host of other seasonal veg etc. 

 Did the same with planning salad stuffs and all the greens & brassica so we have them when we are likely to want them in the right season of the year .

Currently we've still got 6 rutabagas , a couple of leeks , several different green cabbages & about 150 over wintered carrots to get through ,  frozen or pressure canned by the second week of March . 

 After then most of the beds will be cleared and refreshed with homemade compost where needed . ready for individual bottomless pot sown seedlings to be put in after the last frost ( 15April ..... if we are lucky )

I stumbled on a couple useful tools on this subject on the Urban Farmer seeds page.  One is a PDF file on the number of plants suggested for a family of four:

https://www.ufseeds.com/on/demandware.static/-/Sites-UrbanFarmer-Library/default/dw1aaeda0b/images/content/How-to-Know-How-Much-to-Plant-per-Person-in-a-Vegetable-Garden.pdf


The second is a downloadable XLS spreadsheet titled "How Much to Plant Calculator" in which you enter the size of your family and it calculates how many of each plant you would need:

https://www.ufseeds.com/on/demandware.static/-/Sites-UrbanFarmer-Library/default/dwd1a67fce/images/content/How_Much_To_Plant_Calculator.xlsx
 
There are other interesting seed and plant calculators on their site, too:
https://www.ufseeds.com/calculators.html

All these resources are amazing! My older kids are ready to leave the nest and it leaves me wondering how to adjust to feeding fewer people. Thank you so much!