How many plants to feed me?

Your 7ft x 7ft plot would be just big enough to plant 2kg of International Kidney seed potatoes, you get roughly 30 seed in a 2kg net. Plant them 12 inches apart in rows 12 inches apart.

I specify Int Kids for a number of reasons, they are brilliant spuds, they are the variety grown in Jersey and sold as Jersey Royals, they are in fact a maincrop so can stay in the ground right up till late august (dig them as you need them) and you can start cropping them after 9-10 weeks, so a long cropping season. But get them in asap.

Get digging another space for all the rest, for speed at this time of year consider hiring a rotovator, make sure it will do the job you need.

Good luck!

Steve...

 

Apologies people.

I assumed we were talking 7yds*7yds or maybe metres, not feet.
@nikirushka you will need something about 10 times the size. Also you haven't mentioned fruit yet.

 

I know it won't be big enough, that's just for the broccoli! That's why I posted - I'm trying to get a clearer idea of what space I will need for each crop, so I know how much to expand it by. I know it'll need a lot more than there is now though.

Fruit hasn't been mentioned because that's already growing elsewhere. I have two apples, two pears, raspberries and rhubarb, and brand new tayberries to go in but I won't need plot space for those

The potatoes will go in bags or bins so they won't need plot space either, I just want an idea of how many plants will feed me (allow for two people because I LOVE my taters!).

 

The previous owners of this house grew enough fruit and vegetables in the garden not only to be self sufficient, but to sell to neighbours also. As part of this, they left us with two large chest freezers, and also two large cold stores. The smallest of which was 6 cubic metres, and kept a year round temperature of 4C! I measured it over a couple of years with a max-min thermometer!

The big problem was that to keep everything "as was" took far too much time. Basically, it was a full time job for a large part of the year. What we eventually did was reduce the area until it was manageable, and then start to grow the things that we liked to eat that are expensive to buy in the shops. Maybe home grown veggies do taste better than shop bought ones, but when they are priced the way they are, from my point of view, it seems better to grow the more expensive things

Food for thought? (pun intended!)