My garden is winding down. What with the cooler temperatures and shorter days, you can tell the growing season is coming to a close as the produce is considerably smaller.
But early on, i decided to track how much produce I harvested, in part to determine how worthy this undertaking was from a strictly financial standpoint.
Of course, I can't tell you how satisfying it is to walk down to the garden after a day's work and see what the day's pickings are. (Organic, of course, and noticeably more flavorful than store-bought veggies.)
So, without further ado, here's what I harvested this summer:
Enough lettuce for 2 large salads
Several servings of snap peas
3 zucchini (The zucchini rapidly got shaded out by everything else)
7 green peppers (Three plants)
33 cucumbers! (Just 1 or 2 vines)
108 tomatoes! (I had no more than 6 plants!)
I gave some produce away to family and friends. And when the tomatoes threatened to take over the kitchen, I chopped them up and froze them for later use this winter in soups and stews.
As for costs, I did sit down to calculate that as well. My expenses included seeds, tomato seedlings, deer netting, poultry fencing, wood stakes and Miracle Grow. I estimate all this came to about $50.
So, that's $50 for 108 tomatoes, 33 cukes and an assortment of other produce. I don't know what a tomato goes for in the summer, in the supermarket, but I think i came out ahead.
I'm planning a much larger garden next year to accommodate the same vegetables, plus more pepper plants and definitely string beans.
My Garden Runneth Over
September 9th, 2008 at 07:04 pm
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September 9th, 2008 at 09:52 pm 1220997173