Land and garden

Two questions: how much garden to plant for the vegetables you want, and how much land a whole diet takes.

1. Vegetable garden

People

Expected yield (%) Yields can run 25–50% lower for new growers or poor sites.⁵ We start at 75%.

The "per person per year" amounts are examples to show how the tool works. Set them to what your household actually eats.

Crop	Yield per 15 ft row¹	Wanted per person per year	Row feet needed
Asparagus	4.5 lb		0
Beans, snap (bush)	15 lb		0
Beets*	40 lb		0
Broccoli	11 lb		0
Cabbage	22 lb		0
Carrots*	40 lb		0
Chard	11 lb		0
Corn	18 ears		0
Cucumber, slicing*	40 lb		0
Garlic	6 lb		0
Lettuce, leaf*	15 lb		0
Onions, bulb*	34 lb		0
Peas	3 lb		0
Peppers, bell	20 lb		0
Potatoes, sweet	30 lb		0
Potatoes, white	36 lb		0
Spinach*	20 lb		0
Squash, summer	52 lb		0
Squash, winter	45 lb		0
Tomatoes	42 lb		0
Turnips	27 lb		0

–Total row feet

–Approximate garden area (sq ft), at 3 ft per row including path

* UC measured these crops as two rows on a raised bed, so for them "row feet" means feet of a two-row bed.¹ Succession planting and season extension can raise yields per foot.

2. Land for a whole diet

A 2016 peer-reviewed study modeled ten U.S. diets and found each person needs between 0.13 and 1.08 hectares (about 0.32 to 2.67 acres) of farmland a year, depending on the diet. U.S. farmland could generally feed more people on diets with less meat, though the vegan scenario fed fewer people than two of the healthy omnivore diets. The model accounted for land that suits grazing but not crops.⁴ That figure covers cropland and grazing land for a complete diet at farm-scale yields.

People

–Acres at the low end of the study's range

–Acres at the high end of the study's range

Add land for a house, woodlot, water, buffers and land that can't be farmed. Check soil on Web Soil Survey before you buy.

How long until fruit trees bear

Tree	First fruit after planting
Apple, dwarf rootstock	2–3 years²
Apple, semi-dwarf rootstock	4–5 years²
Apple, standard rootstock	7–10 years²
Peach	About 3 years³
Sour cherry	About 3 years³
Sweet cherry	5–7 years³
Plum	6–7 years³

Trees stressed by poor drainage, low nitrogen, pests or disease can take longer.³ Plant trees in your first year so they're bearing by the time you need them.

Land and garden

1. Vegetable garden

2. Land for a whole diet

How long until fruit trees bear

Sources