If you want to grow a garden that truly feeds your family, you’ve got to start with a plan. It’s not a Pinterest-perfect, color-coded masterpiece; it’s just a simple list of what your family eats. If you want to grow food for your pantry, the most efficient garden starts with your grocery list.
Self-sufficiency is a goal, not a starting point. Growing everything you need for a whole year’s worth of meals can take years of practice. But you can start getting close by working backward from the meals your family loves.
Start with What You Eat
For example, in my house we eat:
- Spaghetti once a week
- Pizza another night
- Dried tomatoes and powdered greens go into tons of recipes
- Onions, green peppers, tomatillos, and summer squash are used almost daily
- Pumpkin shows up at least weekly, either in pies or roasted as a side
That’s 104 spaghetti meals alone each year! So I know I need to grow enough tomatoes, onions, garlic, and herbs to make that happen. These are my foundation crops—the ingredients I use frequently and must prioritize in my garden.
Once those are accounted for, I can add the fun things—cherry tomatoes, colorful peppers, luffas, and other special crops that make the garden beautiful and exciting but aren’t pantry essentials.
Think in Seasons (and Seed Packets)
Remember, planting doesn’t start when the soil warms up—it usually begins weeks earlier, indoors. Seed packets will tell you how many weeks before your last frost you should start your seeds inside. This website is another way to find out your planting schedule based on your zip code. This helps ensure strong transplants that are ready to go when the time is right.
For fast-growing crops like leafy greens, try planting in stages. Start one tray today, another in a week, and another a week later. This way, you can harvest fresh greens each week without being overwhelmed all at once.
Remember:
A pantry garden isn’t built on dreams alone. It’s built on what’s for dinner. Look at what your family eats, then grow what you need to keep those meals on the table—one ingredient, row, and tray of seedlings at a time.
