I am firmly in the "How could you possibly have enough, let alone too much?" camp, when it comes to growing most vegetables. This is perhaps not the wisest way to decide how much to grow and why I have a 2nd freezer and a wall of canned tomatoes in my home.
For those of you starting your first vegetable gardens this year and for the wiser experienced vegetable gardeners out there who are trying to keep things under control, here are some guidelines for how much to plant in the vegetable garden, gleaned from my own experience, friends and the bean counters (literally) at cooperative extensions around the country. I say guidelines, because it all comes down to what you like to eat and how well it grows. If you have some suggestions of your own, they'd be most welcome. Use the 'comments' link below.
Photo: © Marie Iannotti
Comments
Seems most folks do too many tomatoes. I have seen many new gardeners plant 50 tomato plants and wonder why they have no room left in the garden or they plant too close and get poor yield and/or disease from crowding. You will get better yield from 1 uncrowded plant than 3 or 4 crowded ones !! Goes for most plants in your garden,, sometimes less is more !!
Tomatoes are a great example. They’re easy to over plant when you’re planting little 8″ seedlings. And then there’s the worry that some of them won’t make it. Maybe it takes so long to learn not to crowd vegetables because we can crowd flowers together without a lot of problems.
This year my goal is to “eat the view” so I’m going to plant up almost every sunny and even the partially shady spaces. I usually give away a lot of the produce we don’t eat to family and friends. Because I save seeds, my start up costs are low and it is mostly labor that goes into weeding and watering. After someone tastes how delicious homegrown is, I hope it will inspire them to grow their own.
Love your website. I must admit I am one who plants in excess. I plant over 80 tomato plants with 24 different varieties. This may seem excessive but we spend most of July canning, making salsa, 8 vegetable juice, spaghetti sauce, and more. Our tomatoes quit producing in the summer do to the heat. I even have my own small tomato tasting contest which usually only constitutes eight or so varieties. But it is lots of fun. Everyone who comes enjoys it and it opens some eyes up.
That’s a lot of canning. I usually mix them all together and just make an all purpose sauce, but now you’ve tempted me to try salsa. My problem is that the tomatoes ripen over such a long period, I tend to toss them all into the freezer until the end of the season and then process everything at once.