Top High-Yielding Vegetables for Maximum Garden Harvests

How to Determine What to Plant in Your Garden

Determining what to plant in your garden can be intimidating and hard to figure out! I recommend using this one-of-a-kind ranking on Bonnie Plants’ website that ranks vegetables based on:

1. Their yield per square foot
2. The average value per pound
3. The length of time in the garden 

Minimal Information on Highest-Yielding Plants

When researching what plants produce the highest yields per square foot, I was shocked at how little information I could find!

As a small-space gardener, knowing this is critical to me. And yet, there’s practically no research or information out there about it (at least that I could find)!

There is a decent amount of information about approximate yields per plant, but that is less useful to me. This is because a watermelon plant or squash plant will take up significantly more square feet than a tomato plant.

General Ranking of High-Yielding Crops

Even though information on plants’ yield per square foot is not readily available, there are a number of farming studies that either look at:

1. Yield per acre
2. Yield per 100 ft. row.

Although this information is a bit less digestible, it’s almost as useful to me personally, since I mostly care about general ranking of different crops on the same square footage. 

Researching Maximum Yields in Gardening

Two of the main reasons why I wanted to look at multiple studies was because:

1. Growing conditions can vary greatly between different climates
2. Some studies focus on the average yield, while others focus on the maximum yield.

I am mostly interested on the maximum yield because in my little garden, I am confident that I can create ideal vertical growing conditions for most plants.

In contrast, most farmers, are not able to give as much attention to each individual plant, especially in mass farming scenarios.

For this reason, I researched the maximum tons per acre that was recorded for each plant type in ideal conditions. 

I was surprised to see that onions topped the list! However, there was a lot of variation in onion rankings between studies, which made me wonder how much climate affects onion yields.

I’m personally not interested in growing onions since they are inexpensive (and I have such limited space), but after seeing it place #1, maybe I should reconsider!

I was also surprised how highly cabbage ranks. I think these high yields per square foot are mostly because of how dense cabbages are!

I was not at all surprised to see how highly tomatoes ranked on almost every study! The data on tomato yield is likely understated since most farmers don’t have the time to do the same level of trellising as a home gardener. Farmers may also prefer determinate varieties for easier harvesting than indeterminate varieties, which produce a bigger crop over more time.

And fun fact, many tomatoes yield about double of the maximum norm when grown inside a greenhouse!

For that reason, I believe tomatoes have the highest yields when grown with ideal climate and trellising. 

I was shocked to see that green beans and pea pods ranked so low on the list! I’ve always thought of those as high yielding vegetables, but maybe these figures aren’t taking succession planting into account (succession planting is a technique where crops are planted in intervals to ensure a continuous harvest throughout the growing season).

At the very least, beans and peas are one of the easiest vegetables to grow vertically, which is a huge factor for small space gardeners. It’s also very possible that, similarly to tomatoes, farmers don’t have the same level of trellising when growing beans and peas on a mass scale. 

So… What Should I Plant in My Garden?

Putting all the yield data aside, the most important factor to take into consideration when choosing what to grow in your own garden is what you vegetables you like to eat the most!

If you like to eat a large variety of garden vegetables and have a small space, I recommend analyzing the data above. It can give you the biggest bang for your buck!

My hope is that this research will help you optimize your garden! Best of luck gardening this season!

Thanks for reading along, guys! If you enjoyed this, check out my other gardening blog posts:

• How to Start a Garden on a Budget for Under $100
• 4 Reasons Why Tomatoes Are the Best Vegetable to Grow
• My Garden Setup: 3 Best Garden Containers for Every Gardener
• Essential and Nice-to-Have Garden Products for Your Perfect Setup
• Best Tomatoes of 2024: My Top 10 Favorite Varieties

Citations

• My Favorite Ranking: https://bonnieplants.com/blogs/garden-fundamentals/ranking-vegetables-for-efficiency
• Approximate Yields Per Plant: https://www.grit.com/farm-and-garden/vegetables/vegetable-yields-per-plant-zm0z24jfzols/
• University of Vermont Study: https://www.uvm.edu/vtvegandberry/factsheets/vegetableberryyields.pdf
• LSU Ag Center Study: https://www.lsuagcenter.com/topics/lawn_garden/home_gardening/vegetables/expected-vegetable-garden-yields
• North Carolina Study: https://cefs.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sfu-vegetable-planting-guide.pdf
• Utah State Study: https://extension.usu.edu/smallfarms/research/expected-vegetable-yields-in-utah
• Michigan State Study: https://www.canr.msu.edu/resources/yields_of_michigan_vegetable_crops_e1565