That’s a five foot (about) row of peas. I planted them on 10 May. It’s now seven weeks later. I picked about a quarter of them yesterday. It was two small servings. That means eight serving in five feet, let’s round that to four feet for an even 2 servings per foot, which could probably be achieved by planting a double-row.
If one eats peas once per week, that’s 52 servings per year, which is 26 feet. Eight weeks from planting to stripped bare. That means a foot planted every week, with eight feet at a time growing. Double that because there are two of us. That’s 16 linear feet of peas growing at any time with two additional feet planted every week and two feet recovered.
A very generous growing season would be 26 weeks, not 52, which doubles it again to 32 linear feet of peas growing at any given time with an addition four feet planted every week and four feet recovered. The big beds are six feet long and three rows of peas deep. That’s about half. Two of the big beds rotating weekly throughout the growing season will give me two servings of peas, once per week year round.
What do we eat on the other six days?
A serving of peas for 300 million people is 150 million linear feet of peas. One acre is 43,560 square feet, which is about a 210 (208.71) foot per side square. Assuming we plant our rows a foot apart, that’s 43,560 linear feet, too. That means it takes about 3,444 acres to grow ONE serving of peas for each person in America.
I don’t think people realize the scale of agriculture in this country.
Marked Up 