I am of the opinion that we, in the United States of America, have become rather spoiled over the last 3/4 of a century with the availability of a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables in our local grocery stores, markets, and super stores. While this vast array of fresh produce is a wonderful boon to our health, it has not always been thus, and may not always be so. Additionally, there are many who want to grow as much of their own produce as they can, myself included, but guidance on quantities of vegetables to plant for a person is somewhat rare in books today. Also, I felt that as I read some of the new books, there was still more reliance on the local grocery store to fill in the gaps than I wanted. Thus, I went looking in a variety of OLD, out of print, books for recommendations on how many vegetables to plant to feed a person for a year. The books I chose to read were from the late 1800’s to the 1940’s, back when many families in the US relied upon the food they grew every year to feed their family for the coming year.
Here is a compilation of the recommendations I found. Bare in mind that these recommendations do not really take into account local growing seasons (artichokes here must be grown in a greenhouse or walapini!) or other climate factors (asparagus in the desert? Only if you live on a river, which I don’t.). Nor do they take into account individual preferences, teenage boys versus teenage girls versus two-year olds, or allergy potential so, take these recommendations as a ROUGH starting point and modify them to suit your situation. If I could grow asparagus, I’d probably plant about 10 times this amount.
Artichokes
1-4 plants per person
Asparagus
12-15 plants per person
Beans, Bush
15-20 plants per person
Beans, Lima
8-10 plants per person
Beans, Pole
15-20 plants per person
Beets
10-20 plants per person
Broccoli
6-12 plants per person
Brussels Sprouts
2-8 plants per person
Cabbage
4-8 plants per person
Carrots
15-60 plants per person
Cauliflower
3-5 plants per person
Celeriac
1-5 plants per person
Celery
4-8 plants per person
Corn
15-50 plants per person
Cucumbers
3-5 plants per person
Eggplant
1-2 plants per person, plus 2-3 extra per family
Kale
1 5’ row per person
Leaf Lettuce
8-10 plants per person
Melons
2-6 plants per person
Onions
40-80 plants per person
Peas
25-60 plants per person
Peppers
6-8 plants per person
Potatoes
10-30 plants per person
Pumpkins, edible
1 plant per person
Rhubarb
1-3 crowns per person
Spinach
10-20 plants per person
Summer Squash
2-4 plants per person
Winter Squash
1-2 plants per person
Sweet Potatoes
5 plants per person
Swiss chard
8-15 plants per person
Tomatoes
2-5 plants per person
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