Garden Yield Calculator
Calculate Yield of a Garden
The Garden Yield Calculator projects how much food your entire garden can produce across a season. It is built for home gardens, raised beds, container gardens, school gardens, and Crop Circle Garden systems.
This calculator helps you estimate garden harvest volume across a season—then compare layouts and input strategies so you can plan realistic yields in small spaces.
Use this tool to estimate total harvest volume, potential market value, water use, and fertilizer inputs based on bed size, plant density, succession planting, and irrigation method. This calculator helps answer practical questions like: How much food will my garden produce? How many people can it feed? And what resources will it require?
This calculator is designed for household- and community-scale growing. If you are planning a commercial or field-scale operation, use the Farm Yield Calculator instead.
The amount a vegetable garden will grow depends on several key factors: the size of the garden, the types of plants you choose, soil quality, sunlight hours, irrigation, and the overall level of care. Two gardens with the same square footage can produce very different yields if one has deep, living soil and consistent water while the other struggles with compaction, shade, or poor fertility.
How much a garden grows also depends on how plants are fertilized and how efficiently water and nutrients are delivered to the root zone. Growing plants in a Crop Circle Garden for example, will typically grow more food than a conventional cultivated, rowed garden because nutrients and moisture are targeted directly to each plant root over time.
Crop Circle Gardens use a cavitated system to keep nutrient-charged soil close to the root of each plant. This “nutrient column” is designed so that the plant uses what it needs, when it needs it, instead of soaking a whole bed or yard. That targeted approach saves a tremendous amount of water and fertilizer—there is virtually no waste and very little nutrient loss through leaching or evaporation.
Cavitated Crop Circle Gardens can grow anywhere and in almost any soil, because a column of enriched, composted soil installs with each garden. You are essentially “dropping” a mini high-performance soil ecosystem into your yard. This means that Crop Circle Gardens ® can be spaced apart to take advantage of plant-preferred sun, shade, or semi-shade locations. You can tuck gardens along a sunny fence, under a light canopy, or near a patio and still achieve high garden yields per square foot.
Use the Garden Yield Calculator below to calculate how many vegetables a conventional cultivated row garden will grow compared to a Crop Circle Garden by plant type and variety. It’s a quick way to compare production potential for bush beans, tomatoes, peppers, leafy greens, herbs, flowers, and more—and to see how much extra food a Crop Circle layout can add to a small backyard or urban garden.
| Factor | Raised Beds | Containers | Crop Circle Gardens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best use case | Backyards, school gardens | Patios, balconies, rooftops | High-density micro-farms |
| Water efficiency | Good with drip | Variable (depends on pot + drip) | High potential (targeted root zone) |
| Soil control | Moderate | High (custom media) | High (enriched soil column) |
| Yield density | Moderate | Moderate–high | High density (design dependent) |
| Maintenance | Moderate | Higher watering sensitivity | Optimized when irrigated consistently |
The Garden Yield Calculator is simple to use. Choose the type of vegetable, herb, or flower from the drop-down menu and click. The estimated number of vegetables, herbs, or flowers produced from a single Crop Circle Garden will appear in the labeled box. These numbers are based on realistic production averages from multiple harvests in a growing season.
Treat these results as planning tools rather than guarantees. You can combine this calculator with the Plant Yield Calculator and Farm Yield Calculator to see how individual plants, small gardens, and full farm acres relate to each other. Together, they give you a full picture of how much food a single yard, community garden, or micro-farm can produce.
Once you know roughly how much a garden will grow using the Garden Yield Calculator, the next step is to increase that yield in real life. Several practical methods improve production from any garden: calculating the proper depth of composted soil, using continuous picking techniques, providing early-season protection, and designing with Crop Circle Gardens for high-density planting.
Soil depth should match the rooting depth of your crop. Deep, loose, compost-rich soil lets roots explore, access nutrients, and handle heat and brief droughts. A shallow, compacted soil profile limits yield no matter how well you water and fertilize. Use approximate root lengths to calculate the proper depth of composted soil for each bed or planter:
Deep composted soil, often referred to as “black gold,” is one of the most powerful tools to increase garden yield per square foot. It is created by breaking down organic matter over time into a dark, crumbly, nutrient-rich medium that holds water, breathes well, and feeds soil life.
High-quality composted soil typically contains:
Deep composted soil is the ideal foundation for high-yield gardening and is the perfect soil construct for “Drill Don’t Till” Crop Circle Gardens. Instead of constant tillage, you build soil from the top down and let roots, worms, and microbes do the heavy lifting.
One surprisingly effective technique to boost yield is the “first flower pick.” This method was discovered accidentally when deer grazed the tops of pepper plants, removing all the first flowers. After some initial disappointment, the plants quickly recovered, grew twice as large, and produced twice as many flowers—and therefore more fruit.
Gardeners can mimic this effect by intentionally removing the first flush of flowers on peppers, tomatoes, or other fruiting crops. Once plants have vigorous stems and leaves, picking the first flowers redirects energy into stronger vegetative growth. The result is a bigger plant with more branches, more flowers, and a higher total yield over the season.
Covering seeds or young plants at the start of the season with a semi-transparent germination cloth or row cover speeds up germination and protects tender seedlings from wind, frost, and insect pressure. The cover functions like a mini greenhouse, trapping a small layer of warm air around the soil surface.
In cool or short-season climates, early covers can give plants a 2–3 week head start and shorten time to harvest—crucial for northern gardeners who need every possible growing day. Even in warmer climates, early protection can reduce transplant shock and produce more consistent stands, improving overall garden yield.
Ready to transform your land or yard into a high-yield, sustainable growing space? Let Crop Circle Farms design and build a custom, low-impact, and water-efficient farm or market garden tailored to your needs. Double your income and cut your costs in half! Contact Us
Help us expand our mission to revolutionize agriculture globally. We are seeking partners to implement Crop Circle Farms to feed people in need. Together, we can build scalable food production systems that save water, reduce costs, and feed thousands of people. Contact Growing To Give
Use the Plant Yield Calculator to estimate how many fruits or vegetables a single plant will produce over a season. Combine it with the Garden Yield Calculator to move from plant-level yield to full-garden production.
When you’re ready to scale beyond a backyard or community garden, the Farm Yield Calculator helps you estimate crop production per acre and compare conventional farming with a Crop Circle Farm Acre.
Crop Circle Gardens ® are compact, round planters that insert into the soil anywhere you want to grow food or flowers. These high-density, high-efficiency gardens are designed to get the most out of each plant by combining deep composted soil, targeted irrigation, and smart spacing. They are ideal for top-growth varieties—beans, peas, leafy greens, peppers, tomatoes, herbs, and flowers—with radish as the notable root-crop exception.
In a well-managed Crop Circle Garden , plants grow in a microclimate that encourages massive leaf growth, abundant flowering, and heavy fruit set. It is not uncommon for a single Crop Circle Garden to grow 10 pounds of bush beans from one planting and three picks. The same footprint in a traditional row layout would typically produce far less.
To calculate the best plants for sun or shade in a Crop Circle Garden, you need to know your climate, your yard’s sun patterns, and your plant list. Because each round planter can be placed independently, you can build a “mosaic” of gardens—full-sun circles, semi-shade circles, and shade-tolerant circles—as you map actual light conditions across the day.
Below are suggestions to help you calculate the type and positioning of plants that will do well in different light conditions and maximize garden yield per square foot in your Crop Circle layout.
Vegetable Plants That Love To Grow In Full Sun
Herb Plants To Grow In Full Sun
Flowers That Prefer Full Sun
Vegetable Plants To Grow In Shade And Semishade
Herbs That Grow Best In Shade And Semishade
Flowers That Love Shade And Semishade
Use this FAQ section to get more from the Garden Yield Calculator by Crop Circle Farms – from what inputs to enter and how to model succession planting, to using the tool with Crop Circle Gardens®, community plots, and school gardens.
Start by entering your basic layout details: bed dimensions (length, width, and depth) or the number and size of containers you are using. Next, add your crop list for each bed or container, including the variety and whether it is grown for leaf, fruit, flower, or root.
For more accurate projections, include your planting density (plants per square foot or per container), your expected yield per plant or per square foot, your irrigation type (hand watering, drip, or sprinkler), and a simple fertilizer plan (organic amendments, compost, or fertigation). If you plan to sell or donate produce, you can also enter approximate market value per pound or per bunch so the calculator can estimate revenue or value of harvest.
Yes. The Garden Yield Calculator is designed for succession planting. For each crop, you can add multiple plantings with different dates throughout the season. For example, you might plant lettuce on March 15, April 1, and April 15 in the same bed. Each planting will have its own expected harvest window.
The calculator totals yields across all successions so you can see season-long production instead of just a single planting. This is especially useful for quick crops like salad greens, radishes, and bush beans, as well as for planning how many Crop Circle Gardens you need to keep your family, neighbors, or food box program supplied.
Yes. You can toggle water-smart irrigation and fertigation presets to estimate how your garden performs compared to conventional watering and broadcast fertilizing. When you select a drip or micro-irrigation preset, the calculator applies up to 90% water savings based on Crop Circle Farms field experience and similar water-efficient systems.
Likewise, when you choose targeted, plant-specific feeding instead of broadcast fertilizer, the tool can show up to 85% fertilizer reduction. These savings are especially compelling in water-scarce regions and when you pair the garden calculator with our Farm Yield Calculator to compare small gardens with larger field systems.
Accuracy depends on the quality of your assumptions. The calculator uses realistic default yields per plant and per square foot, but your actual harvest will reflect your local climate, soil health, water quality, and management. Think of the tool as a planning and comparison engine rather than a guaranteed outcome.
For best results, start with conservative yield estimates, then refine them after each season. Record your real harvest by crop and bed, then update the calculator with those numbers. Over time, your garden yield model will become a powerful, site-specific planning tool that matches your raised beds, containers, and Crop Circle Gardens more closely.
Yes. One of the strengths of the Garden Yield Calculator is the ability to create a baseline scenario and one or more alternative scenarios. For example, you can compare:
After you set up your scenarios, you can export a PDF or CSV summary for planning meetings, grant applications, community garden proposals, or school garden lesson plans. Pair this with the Plant Yield Calculator or Farm Yield Calculator to show how individual plants, home gardens, and farm acres fit together.
Yes. The Garden Yield Calculator runs directly in your browser at no cost and requires no login. You can experiment with as many layouts, crop mixes, and scenarios as you like. This makes it ideal for:
Absolutely. The tool is designed to showcase the performance of Crop Circle Gardens® compared with conventional raised beds and container layouts. When you select a Crop Circle Garden configuration, the calculator automatically applies high-density planting patterns and the water- and fertilizer-saving benefits of targeted, plant-specific irrigation.
You can model how many Crop Circle Garden units you need to produce a set number of pounds of vegetables or to supply a specific number of families, food boxes, or school meal supplements. This makes it easier to plan resource-smart micro-farms in backyards, rooftops, or small community spaces.
Yes. You can treat each container (or grouping of containers) as a mini bed with its own dimensions and planting density. This is ideal for balcony gardens, patio gardens, and rooftop gardens where space is limited but sunlight is excellent.
By entering realistic yields for container-grown plants like cherry tomatoes, hot peppers, herbs, and salad greens, you can see how much food a small space can produce – and how those harvests compare with a traditional in-ground garden or a set of Crop Circle Gardens elsewhere on your property.
Yes. The calculator is a natural fit for community gardens, school gardens, and teaching farms. You can enter multiple beds or plots, assign crops to each, and estimate total harvest by season. This helps teams plan:
When used alongside the Farm Yield Calculator, it can also illustrate how small gardens link to larger micro-farm sites in a neighborhood or island-wide food security plan.
The Garden Yield Calculator is built around common North American gardening units: feet, inches, and pounds. However, you can easily adapt it to metric by converting your bed dimensions to feet and your expected yields to pounds or using simple conversion factors (1 kg ≈ 2.2 lb).
If you garden primarily in metric, you can keep a small conversion table next to the calculator or in your garden notebook. The important thing is to be consistent from season to season so your comparisons and year-over-year improvements remain accurate.
Once you have your yield projections, you can multiply them by realistic market prices or by the retail value of produce you would otherwise buy at the store. This gives you an estimate of garden ROI and a clear picture of how much value your raised beds, containers, or Crop Circle Gardens generate each season.
For food-security and nonprofit projects, you can also express results in meals, food boxes, or servings of fresh produce. Paired with the Plant Yield Calculator and Farm Yield Calculator, the Garden Yield Calculator helps you tell a complete story – from a single plant to a household garden to a neighborhood micro-farm system designed to feed an island or community.
