Diagram Friday: Garden Square Footage

Layout of my 2011 vegetable garden

We recently had a warm spell here in Michigan. Temperatures around New Year's eve and New Year's Day got up to almost 55F! I took advantage of the warm weather to take some measurements of my garden and work on my chicken run a bit. Several people have asked me recently how many square feet of garden space I have. I never know what to say, partially because it increases every year.

After measuring all my beds, I calculated a grand total of approximately 706 square feet. This does not include my cut flower garden (the oval shaped bed in the diagram), which I might convert over to vegetables this year (cut flowers were NOT popular at the farmer's market last year).

706 square feet sounds like a lot of garden space, but that's tiny considering my yard is .71 acres (30,927 square feet)! That means I only have .023% of my yard in cultivation. I guess I need to get plowing this year and bump up my percentage a bit!