How many pounds of produce?

[Blaundee]

I know some folks here aren't a fan of this tool, but it's another data point for you .... LDS food storage calculator

Thank you!

 

[Blaundee]

More important than "how much" is the source of your seeds. Sure you can grow what you want and I have to say that it varies so much from year to year that it is almost impossible to really say "I get this many pounds of this per year" every year. But if you don't have the seed then you will not really be growing anything.. You are preparing for something that I am going to assume you are not going to be able to run to the store and replace stuff. So to that end (and this is just my opinion here I'm sure that many will not agree)I have to say that buying one of those "survival seed vaults" is a big huge waste of time and money- I don't care how they package their seeds many are not meant to be stored for more than one or two years before they really begin to lose germination percentage- sure there are a few that will be okay after years but you are going to want more than one or two things growing.
I was in on a 30 year old survival seed vault grow out experiment- of the seed that I received to grow out I got not one plant out of any of the seeds. Other members got one or two very sick and sad plants that didn't survive to even eat, let alone have seed for the next year.
The seed vault companies are playing on the fear that is rapidly becoming a possible reality.
I myself have been buying and trading Open Pollinated and Heirloom veggies for quite a few years now the only real way to know that your seed is going to be there and be good when TSHTF is to grow it, eat it, propagate it and save it year after year. I grow many things the same every year as staples. Not all seeds have to be grown each year and in fact I do a rotation of my plants so that I have good seed stock at least every other year on my beans and up to every 5 years on my tomatoes. I work them all thru their rotation. (it sounds harder than it is really). I personally love the book "Seed to Seed" by Susan Ashworth for the hows and whys of keeping your seeds pure and how to get those seeds. I'm sure that there are other books that will delve deeper into things like herbs and such but for veggies that is a good go to for first timers.
Many seeds do have to be grown out at least every other year if not every year or you drastically lose seed life. Onions(of all types) and lettuces love to be planted ever year. I have problems with parsnips if I don't grow them out every year(I just leave some in the ground each spring to flower.. they are biennials).
Right now I am not geared toward growing all of our food-that is a tall order but I think if it comes down to "you either grow or starve" I may be okay.. if we can keep all the neighbors out of it that is. I've been "infecting" several of my neighbors with the "you know it tastes so yummy and good fresh out of the garden" haha.
I also think that if the push came to shove many of the "fancy" or "novelty" veggies that don't pull their own weight would probably fall by the wayside.
I also think that many of the Old country(thanks great gran for that term) veggies will make a come back as they were the staples. Cabbage/potatoes/all the root veggies like beets and carrots and turnips and parsnips will last a long time in the root cellar as is without having to be dehydrated or canned or pickled. Just pack them in damp sand or sawdust and dig and eat.
I have weighed my produce only once I kept track cuz I grew tomatoes and made sauce for my daughters wedding reception. not sure if I can find the ledger anymore but with tomatoes a half bushel ranges about 27 to 30 pounds. and for me a half bushel made into sauce made 7 to 8 quarts. it did depend on whether or not I used the all the paste types or if I had to put in round or beefsteak tomatoes.
Tomatoes and green beans/dry soup beans seem to be my best crops. Squashes and pumpkins also are great producers if you can keep the darn deer out of them. (they clear cut an apple orchard up the road from me.. the deer went bonkers all over our area). in a post SHTF world I am out there getting venison to go with my veggies.. but now-that would get me in trouble.

The tomato bushel=lbs info is exactly what I'm looking for, thank you so much

As for the seeds, I grew up doing that- an old farmer nearby taught Mom, and she taught all of us kids. We havent done it as much in the past few years because we haven't been gardening too much, but know how and will begin doing it all again this year I've never heard of the "seed vaults".... kinda like selling bottled water! lol

 

[Blaundee]

Thanks everyone!

 

[Emerald]

You're so welcome! My family isn't that interested in seed saving and even that much in gardening -sure they help me and they sure eat that produce but I have so much floating around in my brain I like to share!
and the reason I was told at area farms that tomatoes are only sold in half bushels is that they are so delicate that they tend to squish and ruin if you sell them by the bushel(which in farm land a real bushel of stuff should weigh 56lbs this is according to my Uncles who where both farmers when I was young).
I have to think that my hubby and kids(which are adults now) were happy when I found gardening forums and didn't bend their ears with seed/garden/do you think that will work-talk! lol

 

[sleuth]

A pretty good book for a beginner or intermediate gardener is "Self Sufficiency on a 1/4 Acre" by Brett Markham. Based on this book, I estimated that using SFG methods, I should be able to grow enough produce in 700 sq. ft. of garden space to feed a family of 3 who eats a reasonable amount of vegetables. Since I am a beginner and have some learning to do, and we have a family of 5 but 2 of which are toddlers who won't eat anything that is not a chicken nugget or macaroni, I went with 700 sq. ft. for my garden.

In it the book also tells you what sort of return (weight) per sq. ft. you should be able to get for different types of vegetables using their methods. Hope that helps.

 

[TanksHill]

Hey Tanks!

I had posted some information a while ago, somewhere here. LOL

Here is a link to good chart that has a lot of good data.

Hey FJ, good to see you. Thanks for the Chart link. I know I had seen it somewhere. Now I just need to make the print bigger so I can read it.

 

[Wannabefree]

Why such broad spectrum questions? Those are not easy to answer at all. I can't even fathom how much we grew/put up/etc. We ate a LOT of it fresh, and then we were given a lot more....so what is it you're wanting to know, on a more precise level? How much per person you'd need? Or...

Okay, more precise- I really want to know approx how many POUNDS or JARS of produce you got from one plant, of whatever variety you grew. All of the info I can find is in bushels, which doesn't translate to how many lbs of food a person eats, because a bushel isn't by weight.

I am getting a decent idea of how many lbs of food a person eats in a year, but have NO idea how to translate that into fresh produce that I need to grow in the garden.

Hmm...still difficult, but maybe we can try. I do know you are supposed to be able to get around 20 pounds of tomatoes per plant per year. Most other veggies I have no clue though. It really depends on how they're planted too. I know what you're trying to wrap your head around now though. I have tried too, but my head doesn't wrap around stuff sometimes I think per potato plant you get about 5 pounds per plant average production. Green beans and stuff like that would be VERY hard to do the math on. Order a Johnny's Select Seeds catalog, or see if you can find it online...the reason I am directing you there, is they have a chart in the front of the catalog that says how much to expect per 100 ft row, and it tells in pounds. The only problem I see with figuring it that way is different veggies won't weigh out even close to each other due to difference in density of the veggies so you'd have to know about what a 20 pound pile of tomatoes look like, and factor in that if you want tomato paste it will take a LOT more tomatoes than if you wanted simply canned tomatoes. Even knowing what 20 pounds of one variety looks like won't really help a great deal. Paste tomatoes are denser than slicing tomatoes...I just get confused and give up and just grow what I can, and can what I grow and hope it holds over till the next garden

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I agree with WBF - my only suggestion is to plant lots more than you 'think' you'll need. If you get more than you can use - donate, can, dehydrate, and/or freeze the rest.

 

[Blaundee]

I just dont want to plant too much of one thing and not enough of another LOL Our growing season is so short, there's no chance to fix mistakes. Plus, we'll need enough to last over the winter, and we eat a LOT of fresh produce all summer, so we need to plan for that.

 

[Emerald]

I just don't want to plant too much of one thing and not enough of another LOL Our growing season is so short, there's no chance to fix mistakes. Plus, we'll need enough to last over the winter, and we eat a LOT of fresh produce all summer, so we need to plan for that.

There is a book that I've borrowed many times from our library and I am so raring to try called "Four Season Harvest" by Elliot Coleman and the only reason I haven't done much of it yet is that I am not real handy with making things even tho I understand how and that it will cost a bit (I'm working on it-collecting stuff to make many of the small items) about making cold frames and growing stuff that is cold hardy and that you can harvest all winter. You are much warmer temperature than I am here in MI(unless you are up in a mountain or something that is tricky growing) and many things can be "held over" in the round and just harvested all winter. I myself HAVE grown out parsnips/carrots/beets and radishes and just covered them with a tarp and loose leaves and also straw and you just peel back that tarp in the winter and you can pull a few out when needed and they are so yummy that way. My Aunt often had whole beds that were just for winter harvest so I know that many things can be kept well with just a minimum amount of prep at fall.. but.. down side to that kind of harvest.. sometimes the tarp froze and it took two of us to get that tarp up.. so after reading the FSH book the cold frames made sense. you could just open them and not wrestle with tarps or even bales of straw.
When I first got hurt and couldn't work I read and read and read on things that interested me and now with the internet it is like crack to a person who loves to learn. Many I've actually done and they work and a few I just have to get me a few more things..
Don't tell hubs but my goal for next summer is getting a couple of barrels and try a bit of aquaponics. I've done a few experiments in my fish tanks and grown out enuf baby boc choi and lettuce to have several meals.. just floating the plants on a pad of Styrofoam on the two fish tanks I have and with a grow light over head. but about the time the plants really got going the fish started eating the roots.. so the goal now is to separate the growing bed but cycle the water thru them and back into the tanks...

and on the goal of growing stuff.. just make a list of what you really enjoy eating veggie wise and start out with growing only a few things that first year.. like say.. tomatoes/corn/beans and maybe a squash or pumpkin see what works for you. I know that say with asparagus they say if you want to grow for yourself and others for the year(canning or freezing for the whole year) that each member of the family who likes it you want at least a 40foot row! needless to say that would be a lot of asparagus for our family. I only have about 30 green plants and 8 of the purple and we eat plenty fresh when it is in season and I put about 10 to 15 packs in the freezer and we eat it as a treat in the winter.
On the say first 4 types of veggie you try this summer do all the research you can, not only on how to grow it but how to cook with it and how to preserve it. sounds silly but when you are in the middle of a, say.. Tomato glut-knowing what you are gonna do with that 100+lbs of tomatoes ahead of time will keep panic down.
Do not do what I did. I started planting big beds of stuff we don't eat.. no.. really.. I did.. lol found that even if you do grow it at home if you don't like Swiss Chard now.. you are not gonna like it when you have a 25foot row of it. sure it was pretty and thankfully my mother just loves it so I sent her bags of it and then blanched and froze bricks of it in a small size just for her and she ate it till she didn't want it anymore.
Don't grow more than say one or two of those weird colored tomatoes for fun.. I grew 10 plants of green zebra- dont' get me wrong.. it is one of the most flavorful and cool tomatoes you are ever going to eat.. but .. making a green tomato sauce or adding them to red sauce to make more.. not a good idea. the green sauce was more of a greenish tan when done and while if you closed your eyes. it sure tasted good.. but trying to get people to eat something that basically looked like canned vomit-wasn't working. and adding them to the red. made it look even worse. lucky for me I didn't can much once I saw the color. and the last few jars got snuck into big big batches of chili where the red tomatoes and the chili itself hid the color.
Also go to your local extension office. They should have pamphlets of your local first frost dates and last frost dates and also sometimes lists of plants that do well in your area. Knowing your season length helps a lot.
Also decide now if you want to trellis your tomatoes or not. here on damp summers if I don't put my tomatoes on fencing the slugs will eat them and then the blight makes them worthless to by rotting them here and there. so I have to put mine up on trellising. but good thing to this. stuff going up leaves more room for stuff that doesn't climb like lettuces and peppers and other veggies.
as you can tell I can go on and on about gardening lol..