That sounds like a great long-term goal! I started ambitiously with 130 SF (combined roughly 32x4) and I fully expect to have enough veggies to feed a family of four and give some away. Maybe even freeze some at the peak of the season. You will eventually have tons more space than that. I agree to start small and learn as you go. That's what I'm doing (except for the starting small part). Best of luck and enjoy the journey!

Here is a link that might be useful: Sinfonian's garden adventure!

The first thing is not to over-do it. (believe me I hear the siren song of fresh veggies too). I'm going to suggest starting with one 3X20 bed while you're feeling out the method (really that's quite large, but many of your tier 1 plants, tomatoes, peppers, okra are planted and then maintained all season, so there's not the replanting etc of smaller crops.

Some of the things you want to grow will take over your garden if you want to put these in the same box, i.e., strawberries, asparagus, etc. I have 16'X4' boxes and they are great but, if I had to do it over again I would put together 4X8' beds. They are the perfect size. My preference is to not have anything longer than 8'. You can do a lot of growing in these 4X8's. I would fight off the urge to plant SFG's in your garden area just because you have all that room. Dont forget that SFG's are reduced by 80% to get the same yield a traditional garden will give you in the same amount of space. Start small, and add as you would like. You are going to end up doing a lot of work with that many squares. Its too inconvenient to walk all the way around the garden just to get to the corner you would like to work in.

Snibb makes a great point. I saw some cool looking beds driving home a new route (using GPS for a change). The beds were 4 by 25+ and all had neat hoop covers over them. Although they were cool and neat, Snibb's point about getting around them is one major inconvenience. Even my 4x11 is a bit onerous at times.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sinfonian's garden experience

Good points, especially about perhaps going with smaller beds. I may plot things out with 4X8 or 4X10 beds to see how that would work out. my main issue is I really haven't the foggiest what kind of yield I'm going to get on pretty much everything except for the herbs, and probably won't know until I get the beds in and see what happens...

this may give you a sampling of what you can do if done correctly. A single 4X4 box planted in the spring time will give you this in time for you to start your summer garden:
1 head of cabbage
1 head of brocolli
1 head of cauliflower
4 heads of romaine
4 heads of red lettuce
4 heads of leaf lettuce
16 scallions
4 heads of salad lettuce
5 pounds of sugar peas
8 bunches of swiss chard
9 bunches of spinach
16 beets
4 bunches of beet greens
16 long carrots
32 radishes

Not too bad! Just a thought......

snibb--that's a yield you got IRL? (not that i don't trust mel, I just know that books sometimes have a tendency to portray the best case scenario). If this is an accurate real world result, maybe I really need to think more like 8-10 4x4s... keep those same groupings, but plant less of everything? heaven knows it would be cheaper...

Garden writers, ie Jeavons, coleman, etc, are pretty much in agreement...start small and take really good care of that, and then expand as your experience and time allow. As Snibb points out, you can get a lot of production out of a small well tended bed. to much to take care of can get away from you in a hurry.

oklibrarian...yes, thats a real life scenario-done all the time by SFG'ers. I will give you another scenario that I did a test run on this year if you are into saving money(amid huge produce increases). At the last of fall-I snipped off all the spinach leaves we had in our 1-4X4 box. It was a huge amount of spinach. I left the main plant in the ground-so, it is still alive. You have 9 spinich plants per square(I used Johnnys Seeds "Space" variety) with no greens. I covered the bed with composted leaves. In Salt Lake City, we had a very cold and snowy winter. In mid March, the snow melts. I go out there and see all my spinach has over-wintered. I now have been eating spinach salads for a month, with more to go-a lot more. I did nothing all winter-in this case for 4 1/2 months. We still have a ton of spinach out there. Now, it will start to warm and I will begin to lose it, but, this gives you an idea. Now, its time to plant "New Zealand Spinach" which does grow in warm weather very successfully...its actually part of the mustard family, but, it is very good.....food for thought!....

I'll have to remember that about my spinach. I've planted Space as well. I didn't know you could over-winter it. It's in the bed I was going to cover anyway, hehe. Cool.

I'm in my third house in Oklahoma and my third SFG. Using the standard mix, I find that 50 sq ft per person is sufficient, so your garden should allow for a lot of happy neighbors. Because of the brutal heat in Canadian County, I use soaker hoses buried in the mix - less evaporation and fewer disease problems. Good luck

I finally learned the secret to planting garlic, in my area anyway, is to put it in in the fall (he recommends Columbus Day, Oct. 13 this year, also Canadian Thanksgiving) giving it a winter in the ground and a whole summer to grow, from one of my coworkers. Experience has taught me that plating it in the spring won't work well, so I wouldn't put it on your first spring crop list.