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How many calories a garden bed can grow
Enter bed area for potatoes, beans, squash, and other staples. See the harvest in kilograms and how many days of food that is for one person.
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Why the yields are modest
The figures are kitchen-garden yields, not a market garden on good soil. Potatoes at 3 kilograms per square metre, dry beans at 0.2 kilograms, winter squash at 3 kilograms, cabbage at 4. A bad year, pests, or poor soil will come in under these numbers.
Calories follow the weight you harvest. Potato, squash, carrot, onion, and cabbage calories use the fresh weight. Bean calories use the dried weight, because that is how beans are stored. Sweet corn uses the kernels, not the cob.
Divide the season’s calories by a daily target, 2,200 by default, and you get days of food for one person. A 10 square metre potato bed is on the order of ten days, which is the honest scale of a small garden. The cupboard still does the winter.
How to sketch a plot
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Step 1
Enter square metres, not the whole yard
Only the beds you will actually plant and weed.
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Step 2
Prefer crops you already eat
A calorie on paper that nobody cooks is not stored food.
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Step 3
Compare with one person’s year
365 days is the backdrop. The result is how many of those days the beds might cover.
Garden questions
Why do beans look weak per square metre?
Dried beans yield a lot less weight than potatoes. They win on protein and on storage, not on kilos.
Can I add fruit trees?
Not here. The list is annual beds with yields that are easy to check. A tree is a different kind of plan.
Does this include seed saving?
No. It is one season’s food from the area you plant.
Related
Most household calories will still come from the cupboard.