How's everyone's garden growing?
I know it's a little early but are you sensing this will be a good year, harvest wise? Are you keeping track of your growing efforts by tallying up the harvest? If so, care to weigh in?
We had a good spring - green wise. Also were pleasantly surprised with the wonderful heads of cabbage we were able to grow this year. To get an early start on any signs of blight Farmer Justin's been spraying the tomatoes with our homemade nettle tea (note to self: brew some more!)
Right now more root crops are coming in (beets, turnips, carrots, garlic, onions) and this week, we harvested a bunch of beans. Looking forward to pickling up a bunch this week. A few green peppers are ripe - cucumbers, tomatoes are not far behind. On the fruit front, blueberries are ripe and ready for picking and the apples are just about ready too. The first flush of strawberries are over - they've been put up (canned and frozen). This morning, I wandered about the garden taking stock of what will be coming in this week while preparing meals and planning preservation in my head and on paper.
The veggies and fruit couldn't have come at a better time as our pantry's been pillaged over the fall, winter and early spring. We used our last can of tomatoes just a few weeks ago, not to mention we are plum out of dilly beans, squash pickles, pickled garlic, cucumber relish, marinated peppers, apple butter and are running very low on fruit jams.
Tis the season for herbs! They are filling in nicely so will have to start harvesting a bunch to dry.
May Harvest tally is in here at the urban homestead!
590 lbs of Produce
41 Duck 112 Chicken Eggs
Year to Date
1,810 lbs Produce
372 Chicken 173 Duck Eggs
9 Comments: "MAY HARVEST TALLY" »
Share your thoughts and tell us what you're thinking... We believe in etiquette and consider those who comment here like house guests. Anyone who treats our home or readers with disrespect will receive no respect in return. Cool? Cool.
Comments are monitored and spam is digitally composted.
And oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!
I always forget to track my monthly total till around June every year for some reason, but I have my total for January through May. I'm in NC, so our winters don't lend themselves to huge yields, but here's where i stand so far:
14 lbs 14.8 ounces Sour Cherries
6 lbs 11.2 ounces Turnip Greens
6 lbs 11.2 ounces Spinach
2 lbs 10.7 ounces Wild Stwberries
2 lbs 4.5 ounces Turnip Roots
1 lb 15.3 ounces Mizuna
1 lb 8.8 ounces Sweet Peas
1 lb 5 ounces Dandelion Greens
1 lb 2.9 ounces Mâche
10.4 ounces Carrots
9.8 ounces Cucumbers
8.2 ounces Beet Greens
8 ounces Arugula
6.1 ounces Radish (F. Breakfast)
5 ounces Garlic
3 ounces W. Strawberry Leaves
1.7 ounces Daylily Blossoms
1 ounce Dandelion Blossoms
.5 ounce Escarole
.4 ounces Dewberry Leaves
.2 ounces Jalapenos
Total - 42 lbs 4.7 ounces
oh yeah....and 621 chicken eggs.
I'm in Ontario Canada, so all I've harvested so far are a handful of radishes, about 4 cups of strawberries which haven't come anywhere near a canning jar or freezer. For some reason "Mom's berries are the best" and my two girls eat them before I can put them up
. I also dried a couple of herbs already: loveage (my personal favourite herb for tomato based soups) and chives. Things sure are growing though. I added another new garden this year so I hope to be enjoying a variety of fruits and veggies in a couple of months.
My garden this year is the best it has ever been! For the first time ever, I am having success at having my onions bulb up and my tomatoes are absolutely going bonkers! I am a very happy gardener this year!
Here in New England we are enjoying an unseasonably warm spring... and thankfully pretty dry. Having so much rot on the vine last year because of too much rain, "dry" is a welcome change here. Our garden is no where near as big as yours, but we are thrilled with our harvest so far:
Strawberries 5.5 lbs
Asparagus 3.5 lbs
Parsnips (over wintered) 3 lbs
Rhubarb 2.5 lbs
considering we had below freezing temps less than a month ago this is welcome blessing.
love reading your blog!
Ruth in New Hampshire
We bought our house in August 2008 with a couple of blackberry bushes on the property. We immediately put in some fruit trees, but didn't "officially" start gardening until this spring. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to track everything without spending lots of time doing paper/computer work!
15 oz swiss chard & spinach
9.2 oz radishes
1 lb 8.2 oz total for May 2010
We are just beginning our journey towards urban homesteading here in Columbia, Missouri, but are happy with the successes we've had so far.
Our totals to date:
- Just under 18 lb of strawberries (no spray)
- 2 lb of greens and garlic scapes (yum!)
Almost everything is planted and growing, so we're just waiting to harvest!
here in Dirty Jerzey - 3 snow peas (eaten in the garden), 2 meals of romaine, red romain, and boston bib, plus plenty of herbs. Don't really have much else ready to hit. I suspect long beans and some early tomatoes soon. Next year, I need to give better thought to planting with an eye toward a rolling harvest.
The garden is slow this year. After torential rain last year, very little now. The herbs are very happy to have dry feet though. I have been drying them at a furious pace: Genovese basil, Thai basil, bush basil, Italian and German oregano, bush oregano, rosemary, lemon thyme, thyme, Melissa officianalis, spearmint, parsley, cilantro, fennel seed and carraway.
Just picked carrots and beets today and have red beans and lima beans forming in the pods. Those are for dried beans.
The potatoes are scaring me though. They look unhappy. We do not have blight in our area of Virginia, yet, and I planted heirlooms so I may have to do a happy dance around them for encouragement!