Farming dollar cost per averaging

[bobpick]

I have garden that is 20*15?

What few items have the ability to be the BEST for amount of yield, nutrition, and easy to store. I'm thinking potatoes, beans, and a couple of other items... Suggestions?

[CGTech]

Plant what you will eat is the big thing.

But be creative. If the garden borders a wall, and you eat beans, try trellis beans along the wall. Or you can train tomato plants to climb up net or stakes, or melons (yum!). And depending on where you are located, don't plant just one crop in a row for the year, start with early variates, then plant mid or late season once you harvest the first one. Also look towards canning or drying the produce as well.

Have fun!

[Freeholder]

Bob, do you have lawn, in addition to the garden area? Because while potatoes aren't the highest yielding for $/sq. ft., they can be planted in deep mulch right on top of the lawn, without any tilling necessary. Just lay down several layers of newspaper, mulch heavily on top of that, and plant the potatoes in the mulch. If you want the biggest return for the space, plant fingerlings. You can get thirty to forty pounds of potatoes from one pound of seed potatoes with fingerlings, as opposed to only ten to twelve pounds of potatoes from a pound of regular seed potatoes (verified this in our garden here).

In your little garden, plant pole beans along one side; tomatoes - trellised (get a variety that bears over a long season); green onions; snap peas (tall ones, trellised); beets; broccoli -- open pollinated, the kind that keeps throwing off shoots for a longer harvest period; lettuce (repeat plantings every week); carrots; a few heads of cabbage; a few trellised (vining) cucumbers; parsley; basil; spinach (repeat plantings every week); kale; a couple of hot pepper plants (they are much more prolific than green peppers); a couple of plants of zucchini or summer squash (if you want winter squash, a very nutritious food that keeps well, plant it in the lawn like the potatoes); Swiss chard (cut and come again, so unlike spinach, one planting will last all summer). Add a couple of dill and cilantro plants if you make pickles or salsa.

Now, take a look at the flower beds around the house. You can slot some herbs into these, and nobody will ever know! I have chives, sage, oregano, and thyme in our flower beds. There are other perennial herbs that can go here, but these are a good start.

You could make a separate small bed for some jerusalem artichokes -- they look like light-weight sunflowers, but the roots are edible, and they will keep coming up forever. Do you use horseradish? It's another 'forever' plant, but is very easy to grow.

I think seasonings are very important, because they are expensive in the stores, and can take bland food and make it more appetizing. There are a lot of things we can't grow without a tropical climate (I'd love to be able to grow cinnamon and cloves, for example), but we ought to try the things that will grow in our areas. Mint plants make good tea, and have medicinal uses, and are a good thing to put in near your outside hose bibbs, especially if one of them drips all summer. (My mint is under a drippy faucet, and also on the north side of the house, because it likes the shade.)

If you have any available corners in your yard, plant blueberries or raspberries. And one of the strawberry circles can go right on top of your lawn. If you have room for a couple of elderberry bushes (they can get as big as a small tree) elderberry tincture is supposed to be effective against the flu virus.

Kathleen

ETA: Plant what your family eats!! My suggestions are just suggestions!