From the ground up
Hearty Kale & Potato Soup
From the Sowcial team
Simmer the potatoes, carrots, onion, and garlic until tender, stir in the kale until wilted, then finish with a splash of milk for creaminess.
Your grow, raise, make checklist
Check off what you already have, then follow the guidance or find it from a nearby grower.
Grow
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0/2Household production plan
How much infrastructure would this recipe take?
These are rough annual estimates based on the grow guide's typical yields, and only cover ingredients you're growing. Anything set to buy is on your grow plan's shopping list instead. Use them for planning, then adjust for your climate, losses, preservation, and actual harvests. Toggle any crop to Hydro to plan it as a hydroponic setup instead of a soil bed.
Carrots
1 garden bed
Based on 24 each per year
120 carrots per 32 sq ft bed · 32 sq ft each
Garlic
1 garden bed
Based on 24 cloves per year
40 bulbs per 32 sq ft bed · 32 sq ft each
Kale
1 garden bed
Based on 24 cups per year
25 lb per 32 sq ft bed · 32 sq ft each
Milk
1 goat
Based on 12 cup per year
700 quarts per goat per year · 200 sq ft each
Onion
1 garden bed
Based on 12 each per year
50 onions per 32 sq ft bed · 32 sq ft each
Potatoes
1 garden bed
Based on 36 each per year
40 lb per 32 sq ft bed · 32 sq ft each
Black pepper
1 vine
Based on 6 teaspoon per year
2 lb dried peppercorns per vine per year · 25 sq ft each
Crushed red pepper flakes
1 lb of dried chili peppers
Based on 3 teaspoon per year
0.85 lb of flakes per lb of dried peppers
Salt
1 gallon of seawater
Based on 12 teaspoon per year
0.25 lb of salt per gallon of seawater
Garden layout
What planting these beds could look like
Each square is roughly one square foot of a standard 4×8 ft bed. Planted squares are shaded; the rest is open soil in that bed. Known companion plants share the leftover space in a bed instead of each getting their own. Where a bed grows a single crop, we flag good companions to interplant (shown as dashed squares), and a small border planting of trap crops is tucked in wherever it can lure pests away from your real crops. Both are how you hold pests down without reaching for a pesticide.
Switch any crop above to Hydro and it moves down here into its own system recommendation instead of a soil bed — tailor it crop by crop to what you can actually grow, whether that's a yard full of beds or a porch with a couple of buckets.
Other growing setups
Grown outside a shared bed — logs, grow bags, and other specialty setups rather than garden-bed square footage.
🌱 Black Pepper
1 vine
Based on ~0.03 lb dried peppercorns a year
≈ 2 lb dried peppercorns per vine per year
Bed 1 of 4
🤝 Companion planted — Like onions, garlic helps mask carrots from root maggot flies.
🐛 Trap crop — French marigold roots suppress root-knot nematodes, and the scent helps mask nearby crops from aphids and beetles.
38% of this 4×8 ft bed planted
Bed 2 of 4
🤝 Companion planted — Onion scent helps keep flea beetles and cabbage moths off brassicas.
🐛 Trap crop — A dead-end trap: harlequin bugs pile onto mustard but cannot complete their life cycle on it. Pull and destroy the planting once it is covered. Aphids swarm nasturtium ahead of its neighbors, and its trailing habit keeps it tucked along the bed edge.
63% of this 4×8 ft bed planted
Bed 3 of 4
🐛 Trap crop — French marigold roots suppress root-knot nematodes, and the scent helps mask nearby crops from aphids and beetles.
🤝 Interplant corn and beans — Both are heavy feeders but root at different depths, a long-standing pairing. Beans are said to help repel Colorado potato beetle.
46% of this 4×8 ft bed planted · dashed squares are companions to slip in along the edges
Bed 4 of 4
🐛 Trap crop — French marigold roots suppress root-knot nematodes, and the scent helps mask nearby crops from aphids and beetles. Aphids swarm nasturtium ahead of its neighbors, and its trailing habit keeps it tucked along the bed edge.
🤝 Interplant basil and onion — Basil nearby is said to repel aphids and thrips and improve pepper growth. Onions help repel aphids from peppers without competing for root space.
25% of this 4×8 ft bed planted · dashed squares are companions to slip in along the edges
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