How Much is Enough?

One of the first questions I’ve been asked when discussing raised beds is the space question. Just how much space do you need to support a family of four anyway? That’s a good question and the answer I always give is, ‘It depends.’ The variables to consider are the nature and type of produce you want to grow and how much of it you will realistically consume. Many garden veggies do not lend themselves to storage (lettuce for instance) and you really want to take a hard look at what you will need week to week. I’ve always used the gallon baggie method for measurement purposes here. I know, for instance that three lettuce plants, after they’ve been cut, washed and drained will fill the average gallon sized plastic baggie. I also know from experience that I generally have at least one salad per day (sometimes two as I’m on a constant diet). That bag will last me about one week as I like to mix a lot of other stuff in each salad. So, going by this method, you will need to grow enough lettuce to fill one to two bags per week per person. A family of four would (assuming everyone loves salads) would need to harvest eight plants per week. Using that rule of thumb, I would plant twelve new starts every week or so starting in early March for this region (zone 6). The Cole crop can be a combination of leaf, romaine, spinach or even chard depending on your tastes. One of the really fun things about growing your own is the natural variety that you have as one plant or another becomes available for harvest. More times than not, I find myself planting way more than I can consume, but that’s OK too as I always have neighbors that will take the excess or be happy to trade what they have too much of. Other vegetable can be treated in much the same way. Over time you will get a good feel as to the amount of plants that will work for you.