How much to plant for a family of four, crop by crop

For a family of four eating fresh vegetables through the summer, a good starting point is six to eight tomato plants, two courgettes, a wigwam of climbing beans, a couple of short rows of potatoes, and a few lettuces sown every three weeks. That’s the core. Add the crops you love and skip the ones you don’t.

The numbers below are rough, for eating fresh rather than preserving. Every family eats differently, so keep notes in the first year and adjust.

Plant numbers for four people

Crop	How many	Notes
Tomatoes	6 to 8 plants	Mix cherry and larger types
Courgettes	2 plants	Three is a glut
Climbing beans	10 to 12 plants	One wigwam
Dwarf beans	20 plants	Two sowings, a month apart
Peas	2 to 3 short rows	Sow every three to four weeks
Potatoes, earlies	10 to 20 seed potatoes	New potatoes for early summer
Potatoes, maincrop	20 to 40 seed potatoes	Only if you’ll store them
Lettuce	6 every 3 weeks	Little and often
Salad leaves	1 short row every 3 weeks	Each row gives several cuts
Carrots	1 to 2 m (3 to 6 ft) row every 3 to 4 weeks
Beetroot	1 m (3 ft) row every 4 weeks
Onions	40 to 80 sets	Only if you have space
Garlic	20 to 40 cloves	One bulb gives about ten
Kale	4 to 6 plants	Picked all winter
Chard	4 to 6 plants	Picked for months
Squash	2 to 4 plants	Two to three fruit each
Sweetcorn	16 plants	A block of four by four
Strawberries	10 to 20 plants	More if the kids love them
Herbs	1 to 2 plants each	Basil and parsley more

For one or two people, halve most of these. For six, add half again, but not for courgettes.

How to decide

1. List what you buy. Look at a few weeks of shopping. That’s what your family actually eats.
2. Grow what’s expensive or better fresh. Salad, herbs, cherry tomatoes, fine beans and soft fruit save the most.
3. Skip what’s cheap and space-hungry. Maincrop potatoes and onions take lots of room for little saving, unless you have the space.
4. Grow a little more than you think. Slugs, birds and weather take a share.

Spread it out

Quantity matters less than timing. Most crops are ready all at once, and a family can only eat so many lettuces in a week. Succession sowing, a short row every few weeks, turns a glut into a steady supply.

Crops that are picked over a long period, such as kale, chard, climbing beans and courgettes, give the most food for each plant, which makes them the backbone of a family garden.

In the first year

Start smaller than this list. A new garden takes time to weed, water and pick, and it’s better to grow half the list well than all of it badly. Keep a simple record of what you planted, what you picked and what went to waste, and use it to plan next year.

For fitting all this in, see vegetable garden layout for beginners, or what to grow in a small garden if space is tight.