I finished the garden plans for 2020 for our current homestead! 

If you’ve read my post from last week, you are probably wondering if I will continue with my garden on our current property and the answer is yes! You’ll find more details about that in Weekly Digs #54 (coming soon). 

My larger garden is a 40 x 80 foot fenced area, with blackberries, flowers, and garlic outside the fence. 

The Plans and the Numbers

I strive to grow a year supply of vegetables for our family of six with our quarter acre garden space.

One of my new goals for 2020 was to plan the garden down to the number of each individual plant to make sure I have enough of everything. 

Below is my list of the number of each plants I will grow. I follow my How Much to Plant for a Year Supply of Food guide.  The list is just for vegetables because that is what we are self-sufficient in for our quarter-acre space. We are still working on the fruit 🙂

• Butternut Squash 6 plants
• Cucumbers 6 plants 
•  Tomatoes 37 plants (27 in ground and 10 grow bags)
• Lettuce 81 plants
• Peppers 26 plants
• Green Beans 54 plants
• Sweet Potatoes 20 plants
• Zucchini/ Summer Squash 4 plants
• Corn 36 plants
• Asparagus 50 plants
• Onions 200 plants
• Potatoes 120 plants
• Garlic 150 plants
• Cabbages 18 plants
• Okra 3 plants
• Kale 24 plants
• Cowpeas 20 plants
• Peas 120 plants

The list includes my second smaller 16 x 20 fenced garden below. I also grow a few plants outside the garden fence in order to get closer to the numbers I need. 

My garden has become bigger and bigger over the years but my fence has stayed the same so I make it work using a few tricks. I talk all about how to grow more food in less space in THIS blog post.

Crop Rotation and Succession Planting

My quarter-acre garden plan is always done with crop rotation in mind. Crop rotation is just what it sounds like, moving the crop families around to a new location each year. It is done to keep pests and diseases of a particular crop from building up in an area.

If you need the basics of crop rotation or want to seed how I rotate my garden be sure to click HERE.

Another aspect of my quarter acre garden plan, which is not visible in the illustration, is succession planting. Because I have a fairly long growing season (150 frost free days), I am able to grow two to three rounds of some vegetables.

My spring and summer garden will be almost completely replanted with a fall and winter garden during August and September. I usually do a fall/winter garden plan too but this year we may sell our home in the summer so I’m waiting on that.

The last part of the garden plan is using a lot of interplanting. Spring crops are planted with heat loving summer ones. By the time the summer crops get large the spring crops really enjoy the extra shade. 

Eventually spring crops will go to seed with the heat. I either pull them to allow more room for the summer crops or leave them to attract pollinators. You can an example in the illustration above with with tomatoes and lettuce.  

The result of a very detailed garden plan is more focused growing! When you know exact amounts of vegetables to plant you aren’t left with excessive amounts of lettuce and not enough potatoes for example. 

Having just the right amount of each plant is critical if you are looking to become more self-sufficient and don’t have much space to work with!