How Many?
The type and number of vegetables and herbs you should plant is entirely driven by your own needs and preferences. Love homemade salsa? You'll want plenty of tomatoes, peppers, onions and cilantro. You won't find cauliflower in our garden — can't stand the stuff. We do however have many successive plantings of a wide variety of greens for wonderful salads from April thru November.
"There's no substitute for experience." You learn a lot through hands-on experience when gardening — it's part of the fun. To get started, make a list of your household's favorites and start with a couple of different varieties of each type. Your knowledge of how much time crops require and how much of them you consume will grow each year along with your garden. We adjust our plans (a little or a lot) every year.
The following chart of guidelines on how much to plant of each vegetable and herb will give you a good starting point. Yields will vary somewhat depending on the specific varieties you plant, the season's weather conditions, and whether or not you do succession plantings (of Cool Season crops). It's helpful to take notes for next year.
Vegetable or Herb |
per 10-foot Row | per Person | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Yield |
# Servings |
Seed or Plants |
Amount Seed or Plants |
# Feet | # Plants | |
| Asparagus | 3 pounds | 14 | crowns | 8 | 5 | 4 |
| Bean (pod) | 3 pounds | 27 | seed | 1.5 oz | 20 | 20 |
| Bean, (snap) | 6 - 10 pounds | 7 - 16 | seed | 1.5 oz | 20 | 20 |
| Bean, lima | 2 pounds | 18 | seed | 1.5 oz | 10 | 10 |
| Beet | 10 pounds | 40 | seed | 1/2 packet | 5 | 20 |
| Broccoli | 8 pounds | 24 | plants | 6 -8 | 5 | 3 - 4 |
| Cabbage | 20 pounds | 106 | plants | 6 -8 | 5 | 3 - 4 |
| Carrot | 10 pounds | 57 | seed | 1/2 packet | 10 | 30 - 60 |
| Corn | 10 - 13 ears | 10 | seed | 1 packet | 10 | 10 - 15 |
| Cucumber | 10 pounds | 45 | seed | 1/2 packet | 2 - 3 | 1 - 2 |
| Eggplant | 12 pounds | 36 | plants | 6 - 8 | 4 - 5 | 2 |
| Garlic | 4 pounds | 120 | cloves | 30 | 1.5 | 5 |
| Lettuce (leaf) | 7 pounds | 37 | seed | 1 packet | 1.5 | 5 |
| Onion seed | 7 pounds | 37 | seed | 1 packet | 5 | 15 |
| Onion sets | 11 pounds | 33 | sets | 60 | 5 | 15 |
| Peas (pod) | 6 pounds | 48 | seed | 1.5 oz | 10 | 20 |
| Peas (shelled) | 3 pounds | 48 | seed | 1.5 oz | 10 | 20 |
| Pepper | 12 pounds | 36 | plants | 5 - 7 | 10 -15 | 6 - 10 |
| Potato | 10 - 30 pounds | 30 | pieces | 10 | 15 | 15 |
| Pumpkin | 40 pounds | 80 | Seed | 8 | 10 | 3 |
| Radish | 10 bunches | 20 | Seed | 1 packet | 5 | 10 |
| Rhubarb | 8 pounds | 8 | Crowns | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| Spinach | 8 pounds | 37 | Seed | 1 packet | 5 | 20 |
| Squash (summer) | 30 pounds | 137 | Seed | 1/2 packet | 5 | 1 - 2 |
| Squash (winter) | 27 pounds | 86 | Seed | 8 | 10 | 3 |
| Swiss Chard (plants) | 12 pounds | 50 | Plants | 8 | 5 | 4 |
| 12 pounds | 50 | Seed | 1 packet | 5 | 4 | |
| Tomato | 28 pounds | 84 | Plants | 3 - 5 | 10 | 3 - 5 |
GrowVeg.com is a helpful online tool for planning quantities and placement of vegetables and herbs in the garden. The initial 30-day trial is free.
More Information
Visit the Vegtables Forum at GreatLakesGardeners.com to get answers to your growing vegetables questions. To ask a new question, Register if you haven't already done so(it's free and helps protect the forum from spam), click on Start New Topic, enter your question and click on Post New Topic.
Come join us at our Vegetables forum, Herbs forum and Growing Vegetables & Herbs blog.
You may also appreciate these books on growing vegetable gardens.
