[green_fingered_ash]

First year growing on my allotment and i just sorted sowed seeds everywhere and bunged in seedlings where weeds had been cleared. it started off as a block of veggies, but i had to remove some lettuce in order to hoe the block, as i planted more and more i organised the seedlings and seeds into rows. i have not counted what i have planted and im sure im going to have way to much of something and too little of what i usually eat.

Could you type a list (as many as possible) of how many of each vegetable do you grow to give me an idea of how many to grow next year.

kind regards

[Yorkie]

I don't think what you're asking is going to give you anything helpful.

People would also need to state how many people are eating the produce, how often they use it and what they do with it - and this will also depend on what else they choose to eat and grow.

So one person simply posting that they have 6 tomato plants will mean nothing in the absence of a lot more information.

[green_fingered_ash]

Thanks for the info, i guess theres no real way unless i save every receipt for a month and calculate it that way...

i may just note down the number of plants i have now and once everything is harvested and starts getting eaten, i'll note down what has run out and what is still in excess or what has been given away .

[Totty]

If you eat salad often, make sure you always have some lettuce going, i sow 8 a fortnight. If you like runners, grow enough to eat and freeze some for winter. There are two adults and two kids in my house and i grew 22 plants last year, we are still eating last years now. Year on year you will get a feel for what you like and how much of each thing you eat. Noy sure i would go to the length of looking back at reciepts, just sow what you like!

[Kristen]

So one person simply posting that they have 6 tomato plants will mean nothing in the absence of a lot more information.

Not entirely sure I agree (although you are right, in the way you said it).

I think numbers provides a ratio from one variety to the next. So if you are a family of 4, and me a family of 2, then if you grow 20 tomato plants and 40 parsnips; and if I grow 10 Toms and 20 Snips, then the ratio is the same Of course I might love Parsnips and hate Tomatoes, so my ratio could be different.

Parsnips is not too difficult - you can work out (roughly) how many roots you might buy / eat in a season.  But Runner Beans is more difficult because one-plant is not equal to one-pod ! and only experience tells you how many plants gives you the harvest you want. Some things, like Courgettes, are way more productive [per plant] than, say, Peppers or Aubergines ...

I find it useful to keep a notebook. Crop / variety name with dates sown, germinated, planted out, the number of plants and the First/Last harvest date.  Plus a note of whether it was too much / too little, and whether too early / too late, and then you can modify next year.   Whether you liked the flavour of that variety, or not, will be handy too.

When you've been doing it for 5 years you'll probably remember what you need / when / how much etc. and may not need the notebook

I grow:

Beans, Broad - 25 plants
Beans, climbing French - 80 plants
Beans, Runner - 25 plants
Beet, Leaf - 20 plants
Beetroot - about 10 pots with 3 seedlings each once a month through the spring/summer
Ditto Kohl Rabi
Brussels Sprouts - about 12 plants
Carrots - I grow them in pots. One pot each month.
Cauliflower - 4 every fortnight from Feb - June
Celeriac - 20 - 30 plants
Celery - 20 plants
Chinese Cabbage about 20
Courgette - 6 plants (probably too many for most people!)
Leeks - about 100 plants
Lettuce - about 6 every fortnight Spring to Summer
Onions, from seed, about 100. Garlic cloves about 50.
Parsnips - 50 plants
Mooli Radish about 20
Potato - first early in bags, 6 x bags, 3 tubers each. Outdoor first early about 30 tubers. Outdoor second early about 40 tubers. Outdoor Pink Fir Apple about 30 tubers.  I don't bother with main crop.
Spring Purple Sprouting Brocolli - about 12 plants
Butternut Squash - 6 - 10 plants
Sweetcorn - 2 batches in greenhouse, 15 plants each. Then 2 outdoor batches about 20 - 30 per batch.  

Greenhouse:

Tomato - 15 plants
Melon - 20 plants
Aubergine - 15 plants
Sweet pepper - 12 plants
Chilli pepper - 6 - 12 plants
Cucumber 3 - 4 plants

probably some things I forgot!

[mumofstig]

I find this site helpful, just up or downsize the quantity according to the size of your family
http://organicgarden.org.uk/gardening/vegetables/how-much-veg-to-plant

[gazza975526570]

I find this site helpful, just up or downsize the quantity according to the size of your family
http://organicgarden.org.uk/gardening/vegetables/how-much-veg-to-plant

Some really interesting suggested figures on here

60 brussel sprout plants?!! Wow thats a lot of sprouts!

[Weston grower]

The figures you are quoting here are way higher than I grow. Partly because I dont have the space, partly because in the limited space I have I try to grow lots of different things and finaly I cant see that we would eat it all. 

However I'd love to have the size of plot that would let me try to. I'd just have to give a lot of it away.

Regards, WG

[LivvyW]

Wow Kristen, that looks like a lot compared to me. How many in your family. We are only 3.
Do you freeze loads of french beans?


Beans, climbing French - 15 plants in polytunnel
Beans, Runner - 10 plants outside on a munty
Beetroot - two batches of about 25 plants
Carrots - Hard to guess about 20ft all together
Cauliflower - three batches of 10 each
Courgette - 6 plants half yellow and half green
Leeks - about 100 plants
Lettuce - about 8 each of three types every month thru Summer
Onions, from seed, about 100. Garlic cloves about 50.
Parsnips - 50 plants
Potato - first early in bags, 3 x bags, 3 tubers each. Outdoor first early about 30 tubers.  Main crop about 30 tubers
Spring Purple Sprouting Brocolli - about 8 plants
Sweetcorn -about 20  
Spring onion 5-6 seeds in 8 modules once a month
Pumpkins - 4
Green squash - 2
Cucumbers - 4
Tomato - 24 plants
Aubergine - 8 plants
Sweet pepper - 12 plants
Chilli pepper - 6  plants
Mange toute - one 4ft row (about 60 plants)
Peas about 12ft in total
Calebrese 8 plants
Cabbage 6 plants
Swede about 20 plants
Strawberries bed approx 6ftx4ft
4 blueberry bushes
4 gooseberry bushes
2 blackcurrant
1 redcurrant
4 rhubarb

[mumofstig]

just for me for summer fresh and winter frozen.

24 runner beans,
20 clg french beans (2 varieties)
10ft row of dwarf beans,
3 x 10 rows sugar snaps (12 seeds to the ft)(all in the freezer now)
2 x 10 tall peas ( " ")
about 80 onions for winter storage,
10 garlic ready to be lifted,
6 celeriac,
6 red cabbage,
6 early cauli,
6 early sweetheart cabbage (eating now)
8 autumn cabbage to transplant
6 cauli Romanesco  "      "
10 Tundra winter cabbage    "     "
24 swede
6 Sprouts seedlings, growing slowly,
3 x 20ft Ambo 2nd earlies.
2 x 10 Pentland Javelin earlies (lifting as needed)
Litter trayfull of leek seedlings to transplant after earlies and sugarsnaps
20 sweetcorn
19 squash/pumpkins different varieties
2 courgettes,
3 gherkins,
tub of carrots and 1 of PFA pots,
8 chard plants,
3 trays salad leaves at various stages,
6 outside toms...the spares
chives, basil, parsley patches
Bed of strawberries and 1 of 12 raspberries.
In the g/houses,
14 toms,
4 aubergines,
4 peppers,
2 small chillies in pots,
2 cukes
3 sweet potatoes in tubs

I think that's about it  
It's alot when you start writing it out  


ps I forgot the 24 parsnips I'm growing for my daughter 

[Kristen]

Wow Kristen, that looks like a lot compared to me. How many in your family. We are only 3.
Do you freeze loads of french beans?

I think the simple answer is that because we have space we don't take a lot of trouble over growing the veg, so it is not well looked after, we don't fertilize or mollycoddle much, and we probably grow a lot more plants to make up for it.

We like to entertain in the summer, so its not uncommon to have 10 or 15 people round for lunch on Sundays, and 30 or 40 some weekends - and when we don't we just give away any excess. We are not particularly keen on eating out-of-season so we don't freeze a huge amount.

[Weston grower]

My allotment suddenly feels like a window box

Regards, WG

[Azazello]

+1!

I've got a way to go yet too.

This is what I have this season, though, for the OP. There are 3 of us (soon to be 4)! I could get more out of the space - I'm trying to get a more consistent areas of good soil as some of the plot is very heavy, and some is dust.

2 raspberries
2 gooseberries
1 tayberry
1 blackcurrant
strawberry bed 10x3 feet.
23 climbing French beens
15 or so dwarf French beans
20 sweet corn
2 butternut squash
4 rhubarb
30 garlic
120 white onions
40 red onions
25 peas (2 types)
perennial spinach
lettuce
3 x 10ft rows carrots
parsnips
calabrese
50 leeks

[green_fingered_ash]

The info has helped me alot

thanks everyone

[Chrysalis]

Have you tried the five-a-day garden on g****le?  They suggest a list of fruits and veggies to keep two people for a year, based on the five-a-day govt target.  we've adapted it this year and are giving it a go for us two....It gave a us a starting point for quantity.  Some we've done more and some less, because of what we like. But broadly speaking, it's working well.