I finally just got around to totaling up everything we grew in the backyard veggie garden this year. The tally: 232 pounds of food!
We spent about $500 on inputs and some of those were one-time costs, such as wood for garden beds. etc., so the cost per pound grown averages $2.20. It's hard to estimate what each item would have costed, but I'll definitely keep in mind the premium for organic food, as we are all organic!
In 2014, we grew:
-68 pounds of roma tomatoes, which we turned into 42 pints of sauce
-50 pounds of apples, which is about two full 5-gallon buckets
-18 pounds of onions, which are perennial walking onions, and produced enough top sets to plant net year's crop for free
-17 pounds of lettuce. You know how light lettuce is, so wow. We donated 8 pounds of fresh greens to the food pantry as well.
-14 pounds of beets. I grew some winter keepers, but let's be honest. We eat them the minute we pick them.
-12 pounds of broccoli
-8 pounds of strawberries. We expect tons more net year, as we planted 100 more plants this season.
-8.5 pounds of adirondack blue potatoes.
-8 pounds of mulberries. I didn't grow these. They came free from my sister's tree.
-5 pounds (about 20 ears) of popcorn
-4 watermelons, New Queen and Moon and Stars, estimating 20 pounds.
-2 pounds of cucumbers, 1 pound of zucchini. We had hoped for more, but the squash bugs
ate them.
-1 pound of cayenne and jalapeno peppers.
-1/2 pound of total herbs : rosemary, mint, tarragon, and dill.
Total= 232 pounds. Nothing to sneeze at, but far short of our goal. There's always next year!
We canned:
42 pints of tomatoes
6 pints of pickles
6 half pints of mulberry jam
60 quarts plus 10 pints of applesauce (we got apples from our CSA farmer)
2014 garden totals
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Plus, it really isn't ALL that much work. I have maybe a dozen busy days during the season. the days I plant then transplant all the seeds and seedlings, the day I plant everything. The days I pick clean and can everything, and the two days in fall when I get the garden ready for next year. It's not too bad!
December 19th, 2014 at 02:35 am 1418956515