Size of garden to grow food for a year?

[OzarkGal]

Our family was talking tonight about our planned raised bed garden for this year and my biggest concern was how many square feet our garden would need to be to grow a year's supply of produce. We are planning on a basic supply of things that can be canned and stored like green beans, peas, sweet corn, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, and so forth. Nothing fancy, just the usual basic garden.
I was thinking of starting with maybe 60ft x 60ft = 3600 sq ft ? We can go much larger if need be. I've been researching getting two crops per growing season using staggered planting and starting veggies in the house to be transplanted to the garden when weather allows.
I have helped plant plenty of field crops (corn and soybeans mostly) but don't have any experience with gardens and was wondering what others experiences have been ?
The topsoil we will be using is the best we can get locally but not the real rich black dirt like up in the northern part of the state.
The topsoil here is a loamy clay type soil. From talking to some local folks here I know we will have to fertilize heavily and not plant the seeds to close together.
Anyone have any suggestions ?

[Joe]

I have not mastered gardening yet - but I have a friend who has.
60x60 is HUGE.
I think you could get by with 30x30 and grow more than you can eat.

Weed every day.

Compost.

Fence.

Water.

Mulch.

[bbkaren]

I still have to tout the square foot gardening system. With that soil mix, man, I'm telling you weeds come out effortlessly because the soil is so friable. Between perlite (they recommend vermiculite but perlite is WAY cheaper here), peat moss, and compost (I get that from the county for, I think, $125 or something for a big truckload) I think I spent around $700 for all the dirt--but nothing says you have to use exactly what they recommend. Probably adding SOME perlite and peat would both condition the soil for drainage and moisture retention, and make it friable.

We have ten 8x4 raised beds that I think would easily feed us during the season plus give enough to can for off-season. That is, assuming I get the whole gardening thing in general figured out! Our entire garden is in an enclosure that's probably about 60x60, but that includes a lot of "non-garden" space...

4 pallets lashed together make a great compost bin and we just keep an extra trash can in the house for "organic waste". We throw everything "natural" in there and haven't had a problem with bears etc. At one point we were putting paper products (napkins, paper plates, etc.) in too but they take a lot longer to turn into dirt so I stopped. Another source of awesome soil amendments is all those bags you find in the fall alongside the road filled with leaves. I brought some home and piled them up in the woods to make leaf mold. In a year or so, they'll have decomposed into make an amazing addition to my soil. Lord willing anyway.

Instead of soaker hoses at $10 apiece, we experimented with $4 cheapo hoses and drilled small holes in them. Then we connected them at a central location to a 5-outlet hose splitter and then connected that to a timer (we had to use two timers because there are 10 beds). It's quite a complicated network but in the end, the beds are automatically surface-watered each day for about 1/2 hour.

[MosinNagant]

I have done this about 60' by 60' area myself for vegetables, probably twice as big as I needed for a family of four though as the Chieftan says. I supplemented with store bought meats.
From experience: I have grown much more than I thought in less space than normally recommended the first year. Good yield. But the second year, even with rotation and fertilizer, much less came well in same area.

I have edited the basic gardening info, and will add relevent information into the correct posts elsewhere into gardening threads where approprite or post new.

Thankyou for the question.It makes me think a lot (and post a little to exitedly sometimes, but thankyou for waking me up ) Best wishes in your gardening endeavors in the future Canning Girl. Regards, MosinNagant .

[bbkaren]

Lots of really useful info, Mosin--thanks!

[Canning Girl]

Last year we put in a raised bed garden. I had approx. 80 sf of green bush beans. From that I canned 108 pints of beans, which is enough for my family of 5 for a year. I planted 40 tomato plants, mostly roma, in 216 sf and canned over 150 quarts of spaghetti sauce, stewed tomatoes, and salsa. I planted carrots in 25 sf and canned 36 pints. I had other raised beds with squashes, cucumbers, lettuce, peppers, etc. that went into some of my canned goods. Overall, I have a little over 500 sf of raised beds, and was able to grow enough tomatoes, carrots and grean beans to keep us for the year. This year I plan to focus more on the vegetables I can can, and cut back on things like radishes.

We filled our beds originally with planter's mix and spread composted manure on them before we put them to bed last fall. I will add more amendments before I plant this spring.

[MosinNagant]

Great info for me to base my canning requirements on , Thank you! I went and read much in the canning posts, saw your recipe too! I am going to be able to calculate my needed jars now. Very kind. I (obviously ) have books on canning but lacked motivation. Thankyou for the gift of motivation Canning Girl! MosinNagant.