How Many Plants Do I Really Need?

How Many Plants Do I Really Need?

When starting seeds for a vegetable garden, it’s easy to get swept away in our excitement and plant dozens of each variety. Two months later we’re staring at a sea of plants that need to be transplanted, and there’s not enough room in the garden! You can always give away extra seedlings, but it can be helpful to have an idea of how much we need to plant at the beginning.

So how many plants do we really need? Of course, the size of your garden area will set the greatest limit on your number of plants, but instead of filling up half of the garden with tomatoes and running out of room for squash or green beans, it might be helpful to have a handy list with numbers of plants per person.

Well, here’s that list! Of course, if your family really loves zucchini and hates beets, you can adjust the amounts to your preferences, but this list gives us a helpful starting point. (You can click on the vegetable name for more information on each one.)

The number of plants needed per person:

• tomato plants 2
  

  Slicing Tomatoes Waiting to Ripen

• bush beans 10-15
• beets 10
• broccoli 1-2
• cabbage 2-3
  

  Purple Cabbage

• carrot 15
• corn 6
• cucumber 2
• eggplant 2
• kale 5
  

  Chard and Violets make a pretty combination planting

• lettuce 4
• melon 2
• onion 15
• peas 15
• sweet pepper 4
  

  Sweet Peppers

• hot pepper 2
• potato 15
• pumpkin 1
• radish 7
• spinach 4
• squash 1
  

  Squash Blossom

• strawberry 3

These amounts will give you plenty for fresh eating and some to preserve for winter. Now that you have an estimate of how many plants your family will need, you can start planting those varieties that can be started early from seed. Take a look at our post about germination, and pre-treating your seeds for helpful tips to get you started.

 

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