How to Grow Your Own Food – 8/7/2013 Garden Tally

This year I’m on a mission to grow 4,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables in my suburban backyard. In 2012 I was able to grow 2,028 pounds, and in 2013 I’m going double or nothing. I have absolutely no idea if I’ll be able to achieve my goal. But, as with any adventure, half the fun is getting there.   ~Mavis

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This past week we harvested just under 50 pounds of fruits and vegetables from our backyard garden and collected 54 eggs from our flock of hens. Growing your own food is cool no matter what size yard you have.

This year the garden has be plagued with slugs. Thanks to Sluggo, I finally feel like I finally have them under control, but that can’t make up the 3 or 4 weeks growing time I’ve lost or the fact that my harvest totals are about 50 pounds short of what I had grown last year at this time. This was suppose to be the year of double or nothing, but so far it’s not looking like I’ll make it to 4,000 pounds by the end of the year. But hey, if I can make it to 2,000 pounds again, I’d be happy with that.

~Mavis

Here is what I have harvested so far this year:

Basil – 11 ounces

I LOVE making fresh pesto.

Beets –12 pounds 1 ounces

It seems like we’ve been harvesting beets left and right lately. I like to toss a little olive oil, and salt and pepper on them and roast them for dinner.

Bok Choy – 4 oz

Check out this Asian Noodle Salad with Bok Choy I made. It’s pretty awesome.

Broccoli – 13 ounces

We didn’t get much broccoli this sprint but I did plant more in my fall garden. If you haven’t tried it yet, this recipe for Broccoli Cranberry and Almond Salad with Feta is delicious.

Cabbage – 40 pounds 14 ounce

We are done harvesting cabbage until fall. There are more heads planted alongside the greenhouse and I started more cabbage seeds for a winter harvest so we should be cook for a while.Here is my recipe for homemade sauerkraut.

Carrots – 3 ounces

I just planted another round of carrots for our fall garden. With a little bit of luck we should have fresh carrots to harvest this December.

Chives – 1 pound 4 ounces

We are picking about an ounce a week to use in recipes.

Cucumbers 2 ounces

We picked our first lemon cucumber yesterday and it tasted great! If you have little ones I think they’d love growing these because of their unusual shape.

Egg Count – 1,717

The chickens only laid 54 eggs last week. I’m not sure what’s going on over there, maybe the chickens are on strike or something, I’m not sure, all I know is we are eating eggs as fast as they can produce them. 🙂

Garlic 9 pounds 2 ounces

Our garlic has been harvested for this year. If you’ve yet to harvest yours, I have a quick post on How to Harvest Garlic.

Garlic Scapes 11 ounces

We used these to make Garlic Scape Pesto. Yumm!

Green Beans 7 pounds 13 ounces

All the fat Roma beans are gone and now we just have the skinny French ones to pick. Before too long it will be time to harvest the pole beans that we having growing up the tepee poles. It’s kind of fun growing different varieties of beans. I can’t remember how many we are growing this year but we love them all.

Kale – 13 pounds 8 ounces

We decided to put Lucy the puggle dog in charge of inspecting the kale. 😉

Kohlrabi 5 pounds 10 ounces

Lettuce – 35 pounds 3 ounces

I filled 2 pallets with lettuce seeds the other day so hopefully when we get back from our road trip we’ll start to see some sprouts popping through the soil.

Microgreens 5 ounces

My favorite way to eat microgreens is with egg salad sandwiches.

Mint 10 oz

I made some blueberry mint jam and also harvested some mint for tea.

Oregano – 13 ounces

Onion – 6 pounds 8 ounces

We’ve been pulling up fresh onions from the garden as we need them. Note to self: Plant about 10 times more next year.

Peas – 42 pounds 9 ounces

We planted bush peas the other day and I’ll probably plant the sugar snap peas {pole} in another week or two for a late fall harvest.

Potatoes – 23 pounds 0 ounces

The potatoes are being harvested as we need {or want them} I figure they longer I keep them in the ground the bigger they’ll get. 😉 I’ll probably do one big harvest here in a few weeks after school gets underway.

Radish – 22 pounds 2 ounces

I planted radish seeds this week too!

Raspberries – 21 pounds 7 ounces

Raspberry production has slowed way down this week and now all that’s left are a few here and there.

Rhubarb – 31 pounds 7 ounces

Last week we harvested another 12+ pounds pounds of rhubarb from the garden. So fa this year we’ve made rhubarb vanilla jam, rhubarb walnut muffins, and strawberry rhubarb pies. 

Sage – 14 ounces

Spinach – 15 ounces

Sprouts –2 pounds 6 ounces

Here are instructions for growing your own sprouts.

Strawberries 13 pounds 3 ounce

The strawberries are producing again. We have them growing in the pallet garden, in the greenhouse and alongside the house. So far we have made strawberry kiwi jam, strawberry freezer jam, strawberry pie, and homemade strawberry shortcake.

Swiss Chard 15 pounds 5 ounces

Chickens love it! 🙂 🙂

Tomatoes 9 pounds 5 ounces

Sweet diggety! The tomatoes are starting to roll in and let me tell you Bob, we can’t pick them fast enough. So far we’ve pretty much been picking cherry tomatoes, but a few of the larger ones are starting to ripen so it won’t be too long now before we’ll start making tomato sauce.

Wheatgrass – 7 ounces

Zucchini – 5 pounds 3 ounces

We’ve got zucchini! The plants are not as big as the ones last year around this time {we had to plant several times because of slugs} but we’ll take what we can get.

Total Food Harvested in 2013: 311 pounds 2 ounces

Total Eggs Collected in 2013: 1,717

If you are new to gardening or just want to learn more on the topic of organic gardening, my #1 favorite book is The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food By Tanya L.K. Denckla.