How big a garden does one need for frugal times? [View all]

[Kaleva]

A very big one if you expect it to provide all of your food needs for a whole year. And that's if one is an experienced gardener with a very fertile and well maintained garden. Something beyond the reach of the great majority of us I believe.

But I do think it possible to have a garden that might be able to supply one with enough food to get through a normal winter in the northern climes.

I've been doing some reading and back of the envelope calculations trying to come up with a list of fruits and vegetables that are relatively easy to store and how much is needed to feed one person for a period of 7 months. Below is what I came up with:

Potatoes

A single plant can produce between 5-10 potatoes each. If you have 1 1/2 servings of potato per day, which is a 1 1/2 medium sized spud or about 12 oz, then you'll need anywhere from 21 to 42 plants per person to cover 210 days. At a spacing of 1 plant per foot, you'll need a row anywhere from 21' to 42' long.

Cabbage

Making sauerkraut out of cabbage is almost fool proof and if kept in a cool basement, will last for months in just 5 gallon pails that are rated food safe. For enough sauerkraut to provide 1 cup a day for 210 days, you'll need about 36 3lb. or 22 5lb. cabbages. A total weight of 109lbs. A food safe 5 gallon pail can hold about 25lbs. of sauerkraut so you'll need 4 5 gallon pails and one smaller pail that will hold 10lbs. 36 3 lb. cabbage plants can fit in a 2' wide raised row that is 24' long if planted 2-1-2-1-2 and so on with 12" spacing between plants.

Carrots

I have yet to try this but some people just leave their fall crop of carrots in the the ground during the winter by heavily mulching them so the ground doesn't freeze and they dig up the carrots as needed. A serving is a carrot per day and for 210 carrots, you'll need 16 square feet if using the square foot gardening method. A 7" long by 1 1/2" diameter carrot weighs close to 3oz.

Apples

The Honeycrisp variety is known for its long storage life, up to 7 months, and one apple can weigh 1 to 1.5lbs.. A semi-dwarf apple tree can produce about 5 to 10 bushels and a bushel weighs about 47 lbs. If you eat one apple per day, you'll need about 5 bushels. For spacing one semi-dwarf apple tree need at least a 12' X 12' area

Butternut squash

Properly cured, this squash has a shelf life of up to 6-7 months. Each fruit weighs about 1lb. each and after removing the skin and seeds, you can get 1 1/2 cups of edible squash which weighs about 10oz. Each plant can produce about 3-4 fruits so for a single 5oz. serving per day or a 10oz. serving every other day, you'll need about 36 plants divided up amongst 12 hills. The hills should be spaced 4 to 5 feet apart with 5 to 7 feet between rows. This will take up to 420 square feet.

The above comes out to 44 ounces of food per day. The average person eats about 3-4lbs. per day. The space requirement for the above is 526 square feet and adding the 144 square feet needed for the apple tree, the total square footage is 670. And this is just to provide food for one person for 7 months. However, if you look at this as a supplement to what food you have stored, then this works well assuming you have the space for the garden and the means to store the produce.