If you are looking for ways to reduce your impact on the environment, you may have considered growing your own vegetables. Every time you buy food from the supermarket, it has an environmental impact. That food has to be transported from the farms to the supermarket shelf, and that journey has its own carbon footprint. Then you need to consider the plastic packaging that is on so many of our food items. It is also likely that pesticides have been used and those chemicals may have an impact on the environment and your health as well. 

If you want to reduce your impact on the environment, you should consider buying organic vegetables that don’t use any chemicals, and if you buy locally, you can reduce the carbon footprint and avoid plastic packaging. However, even the most sustainably produced vegetables still have an impact on the environment in some ways, and you cannot avoid that. If you are really serious about living an eco-friendly lifestyle, and you want to save a bit of money at the same time, you should try growing your own vegetables. 

A lot of people have a small vegetable patch in the garden, which provides some delicious fresh vegetables, but it isn’t enough to feed you all year round, so you will still need to buy from the supermarket. However, if you have a good sized garden, it is possible to grow almost all of the vegetables that you need. If you want to be self-sustainable and grow all of your own vegetables, here are a few important tips to help you out. 

How Big Does The Garden Need To Be? 

This is the first question that most people ask when trying to grow their own vegetables. On average, you need around 200 square feet per person that you are trying to feed. That means that a plot that is around 20 feet by 40 feet should be enough to feed the average sized family of four. That’s quite a big space and some people may struggle to find the space in their garden, especially if you live in an urban area. If this is the case, you should look into local allotments and see if you can get a plot. They can be quite competitive so you may need to put yourself on a waiting list. If you cannot find the space, you may need to focus on crops that grow in a smaller space or crops that can be harvested more regularly if you want to grow enough to feed your family all year round. 

How Much Should You Plant? 

Once you have your vegetable garden ready, you can start planting. But how much should you plant and what should you grow? 

When you are deciding what to grow in the garden, start by thinking about what you would normally buy in the supermarkets. Staples like onions and potatoes, for example, are used in a lot of different meals and they’re relatively easy to grow, so make sure that you have plenty of space for those. More exotic vegetables that you won’t eat as often should have a smaller portion of the patch. It’s also important to remember that your winter harvest may not be that reliable, so you will need to grow more at the end of the summer and preserve it. 

The amount of each vegetable that you grow depends on your family preferences, but this list should give you a rough idea of how much you will need to feed yourself all year round: 

• Broccoli – Around 12 to 15 plants. 
• Carrots – A 12 to 15 foot row. 
• Potatoes – Around 40 to 50 plants. 
• Tomatoes – Around 5 to 8 plants. 
• Spinach – A 30 to 40 foot row. 
• Aubergine – Around 6 to 8 plants. 
• Lettuce – 20 to 30 foot row. 

That should give you a rough idea of how much you need to plant, but you should adjust those numbers based on what you and your family like to eat. Things like lettuce, tomatoes, and aubergines are good if you are low on space because you get a lot out of them. 

How Do You Preserve Your Vegetables?

If you are going to feed yourself from your garden, you need to be able to preserve the vegetables that you grow. It is worth installing some farm sheds if you have the space so you can store vegetables in a cool, dark environment. This will help you to keep vegetables fresh in the short term, but you also need a way to preserve things long term to see you through the winter. 

Freezing your vegetables is the easiest way to keep them fresh for a long time. The best way to freeze vegetables is to cut them up and put them on a baking tray in the freezer. Once they are frozen, you can divide them up into portion sizes. 

Canning is a great way to store vegetables as well, but it does require more equipment and if you get it wrong, the food will not stay fresh. Check out this great guide if you do want to start canning your vegetables. 

How Can You Get More Out Of Your Vegetable Patch?

There are a few simple things that you can do to get more out of your vegetable patch and make sure that you have enough food. 

When it comes time to harvest your vegetables, you should always harvest early and often. If you pick your vegetables every few days, you will usually get a better yield out of them. 

You should also try intercropping, which means planting different vegetables together. This helps you to make use of every available space and get more vegetables growing in a smaller space. Just make sure that you don’t overcrowd things too much so everything still has space to grow. 

It takes a lot of practice to get your vegetable garden right so you may not be completely self-sufficient for the first year or two. But if you follow this guide, you will be able to grow all of the vegetables that you need.