Allotments v Farms

Sounds like Pros is morphing into Veggie......

Well, up to now, it's mostly been 10 portions of bought fruit and veg in varying forms (fresh/frozen/tinned/dried) supplemented with things from the garden, mostly in the summer. Sadly, without proper cooking facilities during the past year, it's been a lot less.

Now I have my own kitchen (albeit one with just a hob currently) and can start growing more, I'm keen to get back to ten portions. One day, it would be nice to have almost all of it home-grown, but that's for a future garden with more space! With a kg/square metre (including the greenhouse), I can aim to get around a third of my intake home-grown - probably more in the summer and less in the winter. Seems a good first goal!

Sounds like Pros is morphing into Veggie......

I will take that as a compliment!

^^^ I've just got brain ache from all the maths I tried weighing all the courgettes I'd grown one year and eventually gave up. I took myself to task and asked what would I do with the information, then decided not a lot and stopped weighing. It was a huge relief!
I've come to the conclusion I just like the act of picking preparing and eating, following the growing and nurturing, weighing has gone out the window

Sounds like Pros is morphing into Veggie......

I will take that as a compliment!

So will I.

Pros's "10 portions a day" reminded me that I have a book by James Wong with a similar title (never read).
https://www.wob.com/en-gb/books/james-wo...1784724764
In it he illustrates how big a "portion" of various F&V are. For example, an apple is 2 portions (to me, its one). In fact all the "portions" were smaller that I thought - or perhaps I'm just greedy! Maybe my attempts at 5 a day have been 10 a day the Wong Way.

I would have thought that 1kg/sqm would be the minimum to expect unless the soil fertility is very poor, when your aim should be to improve it quickly.
Looking at Hessayon (the vegetable 'expert') expected yields (all in imperial):

beetroot 1lb/ft is 3lb per yard, say 5kg/sqm.
kale 2lb per plant, 18" between say 4 plants/sqm 3.6kg.
onions 0.8llb/ft row: 3' x 4rows gives .8x12x0.454=4.3kg.
a good cabbage could weigh a kilo and you would want more than one a sqm. A brussels sprout plant should give a kilo too and a broccoli plant 0.75kg.

Tomatoes and cucumbers in a greenhouse would be lot as tmtt says above.
The problem is, you may grow a good crop but there are a lot of little beasties that will be wanting to help eat it all.
If you are looking at 80g portions, some would be fine straight from the garden: apples, raspberries.. but others need trimming/peeling parsnips ...