How much land for food for family of 4?

[Rafael]

How much land would be necessary to grow enough vegetables, beans, and corn for a family of 4?

[Cil]

It depends on what else you want land for and how much you can afford safely! What kind of veggies are you going plant? Are you going for "cute" or "the most bang for your space"?

[Shamrock1121]

Depends on your food needs, zone you are located in, can you plant both spring and fall crops...

If you go to the library and get the book, Square Foot Gardening, you'll find an intensive gardening style that takes very little land and water. Add to that hanging tomatoes, rather than in-ground, planter gardening, vertical gardening, potatoes in a garbage bag or tires, and you can find "space" besides a formal vegetable garden.

Your County Extension Office will have complete information for your area, including plant selection. So give them a call.

Do a rough figure of how much food you ACTUALLY consume. If you normally eat one can of green beans a week, that's 1-pint a week (home-canned or frozen), so you'll need around 52 pints, not 150.

An average of 14 pounds of green beans is needed per canner load of 7 quarts; an average of 9 pounds is needed per canner load of 9 pints. A bushel weighs 30 pounds and yields 12 to 20 quarts – an average of 2 pounds per quart. Check the back of the seed package for average yields.

Corn: An average of 31-1/2 pounds (in husk) of sweet corn is needed per canner load of 7 quarts; an average of 20 pounds is needed per canner load of 9 pints. A bushel weighs 35 pounds and yields 6 to 11 quarts – an average of 4-1/2 pounds per quart.

Not to mention how much you consume fresh from the garden....

What you CAN'T figure are crop failures. The year zucchini go wild and tomatoes are a flop.

-Karen

[Rafael]

I live in zone 9 and may get about 3/4 to a 1 acre plot of land.
Want to grow a variety of foods including:
corn, various squash, cukes, tomatoes, onions, beans, celery, lettuce, cabbage, green beans, various beans, bell peppers, radish, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower. That would probably be 95% of what we use.

[sbemt456]

Rafael you are going to work your self silly with an acre of garden. Last summer our garden was 150' by 50' and we raised more stuff that we and 2 other families could use. We had 7-50' rows of sweet corn, 3- 50' rows of beets, 1-50'- row of carrots, 1-50' row of lettuce, 3-50' rows of onions, 1-50' row of zucchini and summer squash, 1-50' row of cabbage, 4 50' rows of tomatoes, 1-50' row of bell peppers,1-50' row of hot and banana peppers, 5-50' rows of sweet potatoes, 1-50' row of cukes, 2-50' rows of popcorn, 1-50' rows of butternut squash, 8-50' rows of green beans, 8-50' rows of Boone County White corn for cornmeal. with all this we also had watermelons, cantelopes, and more beans planted in the white corn. I canned nearly 800 jars (mostly quarts) of food from the garden. This dont include what we gave away and stuff that went to waste because people were to lazy to pick if you give it to them. I do grow my herbs separate in a bed near the house. If you have an acre you would have enough room for a few fruit trees, some berries, maybe grapes and any thing else you would want. Here in KY we plant broccoli,cauliflower, and mustard and turnip greens in the fall in a spot where something is done producing. And keep in mind this is 150 X 50 garden. So maybe this will give you a good idea how many and how much you can raise on the area.

Have a great day!

[MNMOM]

Rafael you are going to work your self silly with an acre of garden. Last summer our garden was 150' by 50' and we raised more stuff that we and 2 other families could use. We had 7-50' rows of sweet corn, 3- 50' rows of beets, 1-50'- row of carrots, 1-50' row of lettuce, 3-50' rows of onions, 1-50' row of zucchini and summer squash, 1-50' row of cabbage, 4 50' rows of tomatoes, 1-50' row of bell peppers,1-50' row of hot and banana peppers, 5-50' rows of sweet potatoes, 1-50' row of cukes, 2-50' rows of popcorn, 1-50' rows of butternut squash, 8-50' rows of green beans, 8-50' rows of Boone County White corn for cornmeal. with all this we also had watermelons, cantelopes, and more beans planted in the white corn. I canned nearly 800 jars (mostly quarts) of food from the garden. This dont include what we gave away and stuff that went to waste because people were to lazy to pick if you give it to them. I do grow my herbs separate in a bed near the house. *If you have an acre you would have enough room for a few fruit trees, some berries, maybe grapes and any thing else you would want. *Here in KY we plant broccoli,cauliflower, and mustard and turnip greens in the fall in a spot where something is done producing. And keep in mind this is 150 X 50 garden. So maybe this will give you a good idea how many and how much you can raise on the area.

Have a great day!

Our garden was a tad bit smaller than yours, and yet I froze and dehydrated everything for the two of us, plus vegetables for our son's family of four. We also gave away quite a lot, but there were some that thought the give-away was for veggies already picked. ;D Doesn't happen that way here.

[Rafael]

So I guess it's safe to say that I will have more than enough land.

[walls0stone]

I'm going to have that much. Here is why...last year I had a plot. looking back I don't understand why I only tilled that space. THis farm is massive and I have the tools. This year I'll have an acre plot, with more space between the rows. Enough space to work more than comfortable between the rows. And the smiles and good will I recived from give'n out veggies to folks was worth it. I can't wait to put it in the ground :)

[MHinFox]

LOL th thing no one mentioned....if any of the four are teenagers double their portion if you are going to feed them like they wish...Mine had hollow legs i thought man they could put away the food.

[silvergramma]

hi there are acouple books on the market can help you with that one of them i think is called How to grow more food on as little space as possible ..something like that will tell you each veggie seed by seed plant by plant according to how many are in your family and shows plos and garden lay outs might be called how to grow more food that you ever thought possible

[Rafael]

Thanks to everyone for the answers. I'll look into that book Gramma.

[duckidaho]

We had 4500 square feet (1/8th acre?) and did NOT use our space efficiently. We still had plenty of food in season, and put up quite a bit. We still have 50 lbs of tomatoes frozen in the freezer that we never had time to can. We could, and are planning on, making a big dent in our food budget with that amount of space this year, used more efficiently. We like the book, "The Vegetable Garderner's Bible." We also have other gardening books as well. An acre and you'd be full time gardening.

[Terri]

I live in zone 9 and may get about 3/4 to a 1 acre plot of land.
Want to grow a variety of foods including:
corn, various squash, cukes, tomatoes, onions, beans, celery, lettuce, cabbage, green beans, various beans, bell peppers, radish, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower. That would probably be 95% of what we use.
During the depression, my MIL (Tenessee) *thinks that they had about an acre for their vegetables only. They also had corn from the field ground into cornmeal, bought beans, kept a cow, and raised pigs. But, the acre was for the garden only: the field corn and such was not on that one acre.

They raised space hogs like okra, and stored roots like turnips in a root cellar. They raised all of their vegetables, as money was scarce. This fed a family of 5.

[jighead]

The book gramma is referring to is How to Grow More Vegetables by John Jeavons, and it is excellent. Also, with an acre, you should be able to do enough chickens to keep you and a few other families in eggs year round.

[carugoman]

I'm in the 1990 USDA Zone 8; NW Florida. With some minor modifications, I've been able to obtain a 3 season market farm on several hectares. The only time that I can't grow outside is from mid December to the end of February. Two days ago, I planted lettuces, brassicas, alliums, radishes and potatoes. Next week, peas. In ten days, everything else for spring crop. I have already, strawberries, in bloom about to set fruit and many violas, nasturtiums and roses blooming so I don't have to sugar the beehives any longer until late fall.

On this land, I have practiced organic gardening for over 30 years, but I have to wait three more years for certification, from Big Brother, because I didn't keep their records. Seems IRS records aren't good enough for the USDA nor are my personal records I keep on all aspects of farm operations like I was taught as a youngster by 4H and the Boy Scouts?

When you have a garden of anything over a quarter acre, if you practice of the tried and true methods of farming, such as those that have been around for thousands of years, you'd be surprised how little land it takes to feed very many. With four children, as soon as they learn to crawl, put a small cultivator in their hand and get them digging! Let them appreciate the hot sun, the burning sweat in their eyes and how much hard work it takes to grow their daily meal. Give them a set of values today that they can use for tomorrow; they'll be less likely to abuse and take for granted; they'll be more attuned to see value in every littlest thing in their lives.

Proper stewardship of what God gave us has to be learned, then earned. There is no easy way out. Hard work and aching bodies are what lie ahead for the short-term. The long -term goal is met and appreciated by those that contribute to the good of the family. That should be the American dream of success?

[Wildman]

I used to raise a 3 acre garden. We had about anything you could think of. Keep in mind the best thing about a bigger garden is you can always sell or barter the extra crops. I did learn it feels like alot less work to break your garden down into smaller plots, say 30 by 50, 50 by 50. Easier to harvest 30 foot rows at a time than become overwelmed by 100 foot rows. most of your crops such as beans do not have to go in the garden all at the same time. Also by breaking your area down into smaller plots you can rotate crops between them and pen your chickens or turkeys up on one plot each year to clean up and add to the soil at the same time. Then each year just rotate your crops and chickens from plot to plot. You can also do this with grazing lands. Just follow the cattle with chickens after they graze a peace down but dont let them graze it to short.

Wildman