You can ditch the grocery store and grow your own in a self-sufficient garden this year. Learn what to plant, how much to plant, and get ready for the hard work ahead!
As prices rise, many families are looking for ways to save money and rely less on other people. Food shortage, supply chain demands, and the uncertainty of today’s world have left people eager and ready to grow their own self-sufficient garden. But, many are unsure of exactly what to plant and how much to plant.
To grow a self-sufficient garden, you will need to expect to plant and grow enough food to last you until the following growing season. You will need enough fresh eating vegetables and fruits for summer and enough vegetables and fruits to preserve for spring, fall, and winter.
Table of Contents
- A Note on Self-Sufficiency
- What to Plant in Your Self-Sufficiency Garden
- Share this Post!
- Looking for more?
A Note on Self-Sufficiency
Now, it’s important to note that it is nearly impossible to be entirely self-sufficient in today’s world. Even in pioneering days, the settlers would often go to the grocery store for some key staples like coffee, flour, baking powder, yeast, and salt.
If you homestead in Wisconsin or another northern climate area, you are going to be limited to the types of fruits and vegetables that you can grow as well. To be completely self-sufficient means saying a permanent goodbye to oranges, bananas, and lemons, as well as fresh vegetables and fruits in the winter time. While you may be up for this challenge, there are many people who just aren’t ready to say goodbye to some of those favorites.
Nevertheless, you can still cut your grocery bill drastically and be completely self-sufficient with some of the foods your family eats each year. It will take hard work, patience, time, and energy, but the reward of growing your own truly doesn’t ever get old.
These garden vegetables have potential to completely free you from the grocery store. Be ready, after working hard, to be self-sufficient in these crop areas!
What to Plant in Your Self-Sufficiency Garden
These vegetables are going to be the best ones to plant to become completely self-sufficient and eliminate a need from the grocery store. Of course, some families have different interests and needs, but for the most part, by planting these crops you will find yourself with a solid staple-filled pantry that will provide your family with plenty throughout the year.
Tomatoes
Tomatoes are a hugely important staple food. They can be preserved into pasta sauces, pizza sauces, diced tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, tomato juice, tomato soup, and plain canned tomatoes. There are even more options for tomatoes if you want, like ketchup and even pickled tomatoes! But odds are, you are probably eating a lot of tomatoes in some form within your diet. And if you aren’t, ask yourself if you would consider eating more of them! Part of self-sufficiency is learning to adjust and adapt to what you have available. If you’re able to grow a lot of tomatoes, ask yourself if you’d be willing to eat lots of tomatoes within your diet!
How many tomatoes should you plant in your self-sufficiency garden?
According to Garden Gate Magazine, you should plan to plant 2-4 tomato plants per person in your household. However, the real total of tomatoes you’ll need will really be determined by your family size and consumption each year.
We plant almost 40 tomato plants to produce diced tomatoes, a tomato soup base for chili and other soups and stews, and pasta/pizza sauce for our growing family of five. And even with that many plants, we still were not able to can enough this year for us to be completely self-sufficient. After wrapping up canning in September, we only have a couple of jars of tomato sauce left in our storage, but don’t have any soup starter or diced tomatoes left. This is all part of the learning game of self-sufficiency; there is not a one size fits all model. However, there are some tips and tricks to finding out your size, which I’ll share further down below.
Potatoes
Potatoes are a very versatile, reliable, and easy to store root vegetable, which makes it an excellent option for someone hoping to grow a self-sufficient garden. After being cured in in a dark, well-ventilated area for 10 days, potatoes can be stored for 6-8 months!
How many potatoes should I plant for my self-sufficient garden?
The average American consumes 120 pounds of potatoes every single year. This means that you’ll need to grow 480 pounds of potatoes for a family of four! Generally speaking, two potatoes equals about 1 pound, so that means you’d need to grow about 240 potatoes to meet that need.
How many potatoes come from one plant? You can expect to harvest between 5-10 potatoes from one plant. To get 240 pounds of potatoes, you’ll want to plant between 24-48 seed potatoes in your self-sufficient garden.
Green Beans
Green beans are one of those foods that are an absolute winter staple for our family. They serve as a side dish at multiple meals per week. And, they can be a versatile option for your family, too. In addition to simply canning them for a vegetable side dish, you can also add them to the filling in shepherd’s pies, make a delicious green bean soup, or even pickle them for a crunchy treat.
How many green beans should I plant for a self-sufficient garden?
In our family, I try to plan to grow enough beans for 1-2 canned quarts of beans per week. That would be 52-104 quarts in total for the year.
When you’re canning green beans, 7 quart jars will fit in the pressure canner at a time. Half a bushel will generally be enough beans to make those 7 quarts.
| Pounds of Beans | Number of Beans Needed | Expected Canned Quarts as a Result |
| 14 pounds (about 1/2 of a bushel) | 490-560 green beans | 7 quarts |
| 30 pounds (1 bushel) | 1,050-1,200 green beans | 14-15 quarts |
When planning out the number of beans you’ll need for your family, you’ll want to determine how many quarts of beans you plan to use per week, and then plant accordingly. One plant can be expected to average about 120 beans per plant.
This means for 7 quarts of canned green beans, you’ll need around 4-5 green bean plants. For 14-15 quarts, you’ll need around 9-10 green bean plants.
Carrots
Carrots are another storable root crop that can be a versatile addition to many meals in the winter time. By storing carrots in a moist, cold condition, you should be able to store your carrots for 4-6 months. We generally choose to can our carrots in pints, and use them as a vegetable side dish or in soups during the cold winter months.
How many carrots should I plant for a self-sufficient garden?
Carrots are tricky because they only produce one vegetable per seed you plant. You’re not going to get multiple harvests from one plant, which means you’ll need to plant quite a few to get a significant yield.
On average, Americans are consuming 8.6 pounds of carrots per year. With five medium-sized carrots per pound, that is going to come out to 43 pounds of carrots necessary per person in your family!
| Number of People in Your Family | Number of Pounds of Carrots Needed | Number of Carrots to Plant |
| 2 people | 17 pounds | 86 carrots |
| 3 people | 26 pounds | 129 carrots |
| 4 people | 34 pounds | 172 carrots |
| 5 people | 43 pounds | 215 carrots |
| 6 people | 52 pounds | 258 carrots |
Sweet Corn
The last garden staple is another versatile crop: sweet corn. Sweet corn can be consumed as a side dish, on the cob fresh in the summer time, and in soups and stews. It is a delicious, wonderful food to add to your family’s table- probably my children’s favorite!
How much sweet corn do I need to plant for my self-sufficient garden?
Again, like everything else, you’ll need to determine how much your family will plan to consume in a year. There are 52 weeks per year, so if you’re family wants to have enough corn to have 1-2 quarts of corn per week, then you’ll need enough sweet corn for 52-104 quarts planted.
It takes about 8 ears of corn to give you enough corn to fill a quart jar. That means you should expect to plant 4-8 corn plants for every quart of corn you plan to preserve. This can add up to quite a bit of corn for a self-sufficient garden! Corn does require quite a bit of space, so do be prepared for that.
Onions
Onions are often overlooked as a staple food, but many of us use them in nearly every meal we cook! They add excellent flavor to casseroles, pastas, rice, soups, meats, salads- pretty much every main dish at our house! With proper variety selection, you’ll be able to cure your onions and store them easily throughout the winter and into spring.
How many onions should I plant for a self-sufficient garden?
Onions, like carrots, only produce 1 bulb per plant, so plan to plant a relatively high amount to last you the entire year. For our family, 120-130 onions does the trick.
A great way to figure out how many onions you need for the year in just a very short amount of time is to track how many onions you use in one week. Then, multiply that number by 52! That’s how many onions you’ll need from one growing season to the next.
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Help your fellow gardeners find out what to plant and how much to plant in their own self-sufficient garden this year by pinning this post to Pinterest!
Looking for more?
Check out these other posts on ways you can be more self-sufficient on your homestead:
EDIBLE NUT TREES FOR YOUR COLD-HARDY HOMESTEAD
VEGETABLE AND FLOWER COMBINATIONS TO TRY IN YOUR GARDEN THIS YEAR
BEST VEGETABLES TO DIRECT SOW IN ZONE 4
CHOOSING COLD HARDY TREES FOR YOUR SMALL HOMESTEAD ZONE 4 ORCHARD
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