How does your garden grow?

We measured the area of all the vegetable-growing space yesterday (just the beds, not the paths between them). I've described before how I started growing food in earnest (rather than just growing a few parentally-donated tomato plants in gro-bags, which is what I usually did prior to 2005) in our back-garden in Manchester. By 2005 we were already planning to emigrate, so it wasn't worth trying to get an allotment, although there were some allotment plots within walking distance of our house. To be completely honest, the idea of having such a public space to learn in would have put me off, too - I like to experiment in private!

So, my total growing space for vegetables in 2005 (one raised bed) was 32 square feet (3 m²).

In 2006 we added another bed, bringing the total to 64 square feet (6 m²).

By 2007 we were in Canada. Arriving in late June meant that we had no space or time to grow vegetables, but that summer we did plough up part of the barn yard and create eight vegetable beds which were planted with buckwheat as a green manure. Total growing area: 1,059 square feet (98 m²).

Two more beds were created in the spring of 2008, brining the total to 1,540 square feet (143 m²).

In 2009 we have the three greenhouse beds and one more bed in the upper part of the barnyard, so the grand total now is [fanfare] 2,143 square feet (200 m²).

I don't really plan on expanding the outside vegetable beds any further: keeping on top of the weeding would just be impossible. There might be some more greenhouse beds next year though, so the figure is likely to climb again. It is quite amazing to think that my vegetable garden is now 66 times bigger than it was in 2005. It certainly won't all fit into one photo any more!!