What is a good amount of garden?

[Dillbert]

Aya -

as you've read, with no experience, starting small is more apt to succeed. you will learn few things along the way.

now, starting small doesn't mean abandoning all thoughts for future planning.... think ahead - it makes later life easier (g)

some oddball thoughts on the post chain....

corn and melons - these are _huge_ space consumers - not a good "space to crop" yield. melons are not good candidates for freezing / etc - corn you can can/freeze. I gave up growing corn decades ago because when it's (locally) in season I can buy and can / freeze myself to a cob and still have my own garden space.


if the end intent is to "put up" enough food to (substantially) feed a family of 4 through the winter, you'll need an acre plus, lots of canning jars and several freezers. regrettably it is an impractical goal for most people.

"I'm going to concentrate on: Tomatoes (Cherry and Regular Size), Carrots, Lettuce, Spinach, Potatoes, Peas, and Herbs."

tomato - cherry tomatoes don't come out of the freezer/canner all so great - best limit them to what you can consume fresh. other tomato are easily canned/frozen. 6-8 good yielding plants is enough for two fresh/frozen. I cook down any excess with onion/green pepper (next row over....) and we horde that stash for homemade pizza. if you haven't had a pizza with your own tomatoes, you're missing a really good thing (g)

my garden plot is about 800 sq ft - we eat fresh throughout the season, I put up any excess.
potatoes: I buy the seed potato, cut them, air dry them, about 20 sprout plantings keeps two in spuds through the fall. you can easily grow more - but storing them over the winter is not duck soup. you'll need something like a "root cellar"

carrots need a deep soft / loamy soil - one can be disappointed with carrots trying to grow in hard clay - what's you soil like?

"about 9 healthy pea plants, which I think might be too much "
uhmmm, not really. I have wire trellis - total of 18 linear feet, planted both sides, 36 row feet of peas sown perhaps 20-30 peas/plants per foot. I _may_ get enough 'left over' to freeze a couple quarts. there is no such thing as too many peas.....

lettuce, spinach, peas... these all fade away in summer heat. plan for something like green / wax / lima beans to fill up that space. get ruthless - peas done, rip 'em out and put something else in.

leaf lettuce I plant in a wide row; I harvest to thin out the 'patch' so the remaining plants grow nicely. if you have a 'shady' spot - that's for lettuce and spinach - the shade aka lack of hot sun can extend their harvesting time. when they 'bolt' and send up seed stalks, all done - taste goes off/bitter.

herbs - consider doing these in pots - some have very different culturing needs (aka "Mediterranean") plus if you have a sunny spot in the house, you can bring them indoors and continue to harvest thru the winter.

[gixxerific]

I didn't read the thread but I'm sure it has been said over and over NOT MORE THAN YOU CAN HANDLE.

[garden5]

If I had limited my gardening to what I *already* liked, I would never have experienced fresh kale, among other veggies. The *only* kale I've ever eaten is that out of my own garden. I haven't even bought any from the produce store a block away!

And fresh peas are so $$$ that it really pays to grow them at home, even if you harvest sufficient numbers only for garnishing.

Fresh fava beans I had never purchased UNTIL I picked them out of my Square Foot Garden at MIL's house. WOW! Now I grow them here, I grow them there, and I purchase them as well, since the favas seem to have a difficult time making it back to my house from Palo Alto...I end up with a lot of compost material, but not many beans. Hey, a driver's got to eat; right? (Another pricey veggie.)

Arugula. $$$, so grow it at home if you like it. Radicchio, ditto. Tomatoes, since even in season, the really good ones don't travel well and won't show up at the stores.

As to why people grow stuff they don't like: I have at least one answer to this. My strange gardening experiences in Atlanta (college + working) included a desperate need for quick success. My Man and I read seed packets like crazy and found that radishes had the shortest germination + days to harvest period, so we bought some radish seeds and put them out in (maybe?) March. By mid- to late April, we had radishes!

Only to discover that, despite their glorious color and odor, neither of us could stand eating them. *sigh* But at least we knew that something would grow behind the house (where the southern exposure was).

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

I have to agree with Cythia. I like to try new things just about every year in the garden. Even things that I may not be that wild about. The reason is that many crops taste different coming out of the garden than coming out if the grocery bag .