Every garden and gardener is different. We each have our goals for the year, whether it is almost complete self-sufficiency to growing a few special plants that we can’t buy at the store. I’ve built a small calculator to help figure out how much of what vegetables you should grow depending on what percentage of your annual intake you’d like to get from your garden. You can download this as n Excel file below or you can have a look at a Google Doc version at the end of the post.:
Here’s how it works. At the top, you enter the number of people and what percentage of these crops would you like to get from your garden. Obviously it requires some space to grow this many crops, so you’ll have to balance how much you’d like to grow with what space you have available.
Once these values are entered, the sheet below will update to show you an estimated yield, number of plants to be grown, the seed sewing depth, plant spacing, row spacing, total row length and area covered, and days to harvest.
If you want to tweak the spreadsheet, you can easily do so. The number of people and percentage is multiplied by the suggested number of plants to supply 100 percent of one’s needs for the year. For example, 24 cucumber plants are suggested for the entire year’s worth of cucumber consumption. If you think you need less or more cucumbers, go into the Column C cell for that plant and modify the last number in the formula “=F1*(F2/100))*24” to whatever number of cucumbers you think is appropriate for 100 percent of your needs. I like okra, for example, so I’ll double my number, just so we have enough pickled okra to last me into the spring.
Feedback, updates, and results are welcome. Leave us a comment below.
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