How much can you grow? Quantifying yield in a community garden plot – One family’s experience

Abstract

Here we describe the experiences and lessons learned by a family growing vegetables in local community gardens during the past 13 years. We are not agricultural professionals, though Rebecca is a farmer’s daughter who has taught biology and has had a lifelong passion for gardening, both ornamental as well as food producing. Rebecca and Michael have had several private home vegetable gardens over the years, but our current vegetable garden, which we like to call our “patch,” is located in a public park in the city of Seattle.