Our family did not have a garden when I was growing up - we sometimes had a couple of tomato plants and there was a tiny strawberry patch along the side of the house but other than that, I was not taught to garden when I was young. Everything I have learned has come from reading pretty much anything related to gardening I can find.
So, I've had a few successes and a few failures too but I'm constantly learning. One thing I have always been unsure about is how much of any one thing to plant - for example, how many carrots should I plant or how many rows of corn? Of course, there is always the chance that your crop will perform in a less than stellar fashion but with some planning, you just may be able to have the wonderful satisfaction of providing nutritious food for yourself and your family and maybe even your neighbors too!
How can I intelligently predict how much I should plant? In keeping with our theme to BE INTENTIONAL, I have decided to keep track of how many vegetables our family uses on a weekly/monthly basis and use that along with a way to figure out plant yields to determine number of plants at rows to include in my 2015 garden. I've taped up a tally sheet in the kitchen and I'll keep you posted. For example, I know that my family uses two pounds of carrots a week so 2 pounds x 52 weeks = 104 pounds of carrots. An internet search says that there are about 4 large carrots per pound so if I want to provide enough carrots for my family for the whole year, I should plant 416 carrots - Wow - that is a lot of carrots!
Does that seem overwhelming? I hope not....I find it comforting that I have the potential to truly plan for feeding my family right from the garden in my own little patch of soil.
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