A Week of Dinners from a 100 Square Foot Garden

The basket: what 100 square feet hands you in a July week

At full tilt in July, that six-crop garden is not shy. Here is the peak-week basket, straight from the plant counts in the family-of-4 plan:

• Slicing tomatoes: 3 plants at about 1.5 lb each per week, so about 4.5 lb.
• Summer squash: 2 plants at about 2 lb each per week, so about 4 lb.
• Slicing cucumbers: 4 plants at about 1 lb each per week, so about 4 lb.
• Bush beans: 15 plants at about 0.25 lb each per week, so about 3.75 lb.
• Leaf lettuce: re-sown in rounds, enough for a salad most days.
• Carrots: about 0.2 lb per root, and a ready block of about 23 roots is about 4.5 lb.

The 7 dinners

You will not cook all 20 pounds into dinner. Some goes to lunches, snacks, and the counter. But most of it lands on a plate this week. Grocery staples like pasta, rice, eggs, tortillas, and a rotisserie chicken carry the rest. Here are seven simple nights.

• Monday, tomato and cucumber salad night. Slice about 1 lb of tomatoes and 1 lb of cucumbers over greens, add a grilled protein from the store. Uses about 1 lb of each.
• Tuesday, pasta with blistered tomatoes and squash. Cook 1 box of pasta, blister about 1.5 lb of tomatoes and 1.5 lb of squash in a hot pan. Uses about 1.5 lb tomatoes and 1.5 lb squash.
• Wednesday, stir-fried green beans and rice. Cook rice, stir-fry about 2 lb of beans with garlic and soy. Uses about 2 lb of your 3.75 lb of beans.
• Thursday, garden tacos. Warm tortillas, roast about 1.5 lb of squash and 1 lb of carrots, top with shredded rotisserie chicken. Uses about 1.5 lb squash and 1 lb carrots.
• Friday, big salad and frittata. Beat 8 eggs, fold in the last squash and a handful of beans, serve with a full lettuce-and-cucumber salad. Uses about 1 lb cucumbers, most of the remaining lettuce, and about 1 lb beans.
• Saturday, sheet-pan roast. Roast about 3 lb of carrots and any leftover squash on one pan with a store protein. Uses about 3 lb of carrots.
• Sunday, gazpacho or tomato soup. Blend about 2 lb of tomatoes with cucumber and serve cold, or simmer it into soup with bread from the store. Uses about 2 lb tomatoes and about 1 lb cucumbers.

What the week actually burned

Add it up and the menu uses most of the basket. This week burned about 4.5 lb of your 4.5 lb of tomatoes, about 3 lb of your 4 lb of squash, about 3 lb of your 4 lb of cucumbers, about 3 lb of your 3.75 lb of beans, about 4 lb of your 4.5 lb of carrots, and most of the lettuce.

That is roughly 17 to 18 pounds of the 20 pound basket landing in dinners, with a couple of pounds left for lunches and snacks. No heroics, no fancy recipes. Seven normal nights.

When the basket beats the menu

Some weeks the garden out-produces the dinners, and that is fine. In a hot stretch, squash and cucumbers can come faster than seven nights can use them. When that happens, the overflow goes to preserving, not the compost.

Freeze the extra beans and squash for winter. Turn the cucumber pile into refrigerator pickles. If you grow more tomatoes than a week of soup can hold, freeze or can them. The point is to have a plan before the counter fills up, so a good week does not turn into waste.

Keeping the basket coming, and the weeks that look different

This 20 pound basket is July at full tilt. Not every week looks like it. In June the lettuce is the star and the beans and tomatoes are barely starting. By September the tomatoes fade and a fresh bean sowing is what carries dinner. Peak weeks are the peak, not the average.

To keep the basket coming, sow in rounds instead of all at once. Re-sow lettuce every 2 to 3 weeks and start a fresh block of beans as an older one winds down, since each bean sowing only stays productive for about 3 weeks. That is the whole trick, no deep how-to needed. And remember this is produce from the yard, not off-grid living. Every dinner above still leaned on store staples like pasta, rice, eggs, and tortillas.

Grow the menu you actually eat

The reason this basket turns into real dinners is that the garden was sized from meals, not guesses. PlotToTable starts from the plate. You tell it you want salad most days and tomatoes a few times a week, and it hands back the plant counts and bed sizes that produce exactly that. Plan the week you want to eat, and the basket takes care of itself.