“Days to Maturity” — is that from the day you rip open the seed packet? From the day it germinates? Does it start when you move it from the windowsill to the garden proper? Different seed companies have different stats, argh. But in general one can say that it takes longer to grow a tomato than it takes to grow a head of lettuce.
As a matter of fact, some short season crops are so short you can grow two or three sets of them when you could only grow one set of the long-season. So in one year in 4 sq feet:
- one tomato plant, giving 30 lbs of fruit over 2 months
- five lettuce plants, three crops, giving 15 lbs over the whole year
Fun fact: this gets even more deliciously complicated when one looks at cool and warm season crops, succession planting, and rotational cropping. I love jigsaw puzzles!
