How Much Food To Grow & Preserve For A Family Of 4
Planning is a vital part of growing enough food to feed your family. Preparing for the unexpected like food shortages, rising prices, and supply chain issues will ensure that even in the worst of times, you have what you need to thrive. While a lot of gardeners prefer to eat their crops fresh, preserving either a portion or the entire harvest for long term storage is what we recommend to feel secure in knowing that food insecurity won’t be an issue.
A Few Things To Consider When Planning On What To Grow In Your Garden
Diversity of the plant
How many different uses can you get out of one crop? For example, corn can not only be eaten on or off the cob, but can be ground into cornmeal, used as animal feed, or sold at market for extra income.
How much space do you have to grow?
While there is a lot of information out there that tells you how much space you need in your garden to feed a person, there are many variables involved like the space requirements for plants, how much each family consumes, just to name a few. This is where planning comes into play. Choose the crops you want to grow, determine the space requirements and the yield for those crops and make sure that you get enough harvest to feed the number of people in your family using the charts, calculators, and planners below.
How many people do you plan to feed?
Obviously taking into account the people in your household, you also need to factor in those outside of your family. Are you planning on using these crops in a recipe during a dinner party? Do you plan on giving away some of your preserved food away as gifts to neighbors? If so, you may need to plan on planting some extra crops to account for those factors.
Do you have anything left over from last year’s harvest?
Having a bountiful garden is surely a great feeling but not having the space to store the crops you’ve grown is the quickest path to food waste. As a good rule of thumb, it’s a good idea to keep records of everything that you have in the freezer and pantry so that you can have a better idea of what you should be planting.
How Much To Plant For Your Family
Because of all the variables that go along with planning your garden, the chart below is simply a recommendation on how much to plant per person on average. Each family consumes different amounts of food, climates, soil, temperatures, etc., change from garden to garden so be sure to adjust these amounts based on your family's needs. For a more in-depth breakdown, download the Free Printable Garden Planner!
Hoss Garden Planner
Use the Hoss Garden Planner to determine planting dates for any crop in your specific growing zone. This easy-to-use slide guide contains a plethora information to assist your fall and spring vegetable gardening endeavors. One side contains the spring garden planting guide, while the other side contains the fall garden planting guide.
To use, simply pull the insert until the red line matches with the first frost date for your area. You will then be able to see suggested planting and harvest dates for a wide variety of vegetable crops in your planting zone. In addition to providing outdoor planting dates, the Hoss Garden Planner also provides indoor seeding dates for those crops that are typically transplanted.
Other information includes plants spacing, suggested planting depth, row spacing, distance between plants after thinning, minimum daily sunshine required and suggested companion plants. Made with heavy-duty card paper and includes a zip seal bag to keep it clean and dry.