2011 Vegetable Garden - How Many Zucchini and Tomato Plants Do I Need?

squash, cucumbers, zucchini

I planted 6 tomato plants this year. One came up volunteer, so that's a total of 7. From those plants, I harvested 12 bags of tomatoes. I typically add them to fried potatoes or to spaghetti sauce. I purchase organic jars of spaghetti sauce and a bag of organic tomatoes from my garden stretches it twice as far. I could use up one bag of tomatoes a week, so 52 bags wouldn't be too much to put up each growing season. I certainly could've done with a lot more tomatoes. Next year, I hope to plant 28 tomato plants.

frozen zucchini

We're not quite through with the growing season yet. So I might get another bag or two of tomatoes out of the garden.

I had 3 thriving zucchini plants and from those I've got about 28 bags of zucchini. That was enough for me, and I also made 12 cans of sweet zucchini relish. If I'd had one more zucchini plant, I'd have had plenty to share with family. Next year, I hope to grow at least 4 zucchini.

This year, I also grew ornamental gourds and I have a ton of those. They're pretty but they're really not very functional. I don't have any purpose for them and the vines took up a lot of garden space that could have been used to grow something else. Note to self - Don't grow ornamental gourds again.

Next year, I hope to have at least 1 pepper plant. I've never had a lot of luck with peppers, but I should try again. I just bought organic peppers at the grocery store today. $5.85 for 2 green peppers and $6.50 for two red peppers. Ridiculous!