I'm on the board! The Big Weigh in

With a whopping pound and a half of baby carrots!

I marked down March 9th as the day of my first harvest of this year. And here's the haul:
After my happy accident last year where I was able to harvest some tender baby carrots early in the year from late fall planted carrots I've put this little trick on my list of must-do's every year.

There's not a lot to them I know, but the flavor is out of this world! Something about a freezing winter to make them sweet. If you haven't tried it, keep it in mind for next year. I'm planning even more this year.

Grow on!
P~

Did you notice?

Over there...in the side bar.
The big weigh-in has been updated. It's a new year and it's time to get this pupply up and running. A~ and I have started a new journal for 2009 to let us track all our food production and to help us keep track of our eggs.

Speaking of which, you may have noticed in the aforementioned Big Weigh-In section that we have 227 eggs so far. That is the total for the month of January alone. I'll most likely be updating that either monthly, or potentially bi-monthly this summer. So you realize that that averages to just over 7 eggs a day...IN JANUARY?! No complaints mind you, but that could put us at well over 2500 eggs by the end of the year at that rate.

I'm anticipating a molt though, so that should slow em down a bit. In fact, come to think of it, I think the older white leghorn birds may be beginning to go into molt as we speak I found a couple of them are loosing feathers on their backsides already. I hope they'll be alright. I'll be keeping an eye on them.

Any way, back to the big weigh in. If you've not done it before, I really encourage you to try to keep track of the weight of the production that you're able to get from your yards. It's amazing to see how much we can do on so little.

And in related news, After I put this post together together yesterday, I read today on the Path to Freedom Journal about their new challenge for 2009. It's called the "Freedom Harvest Challenge" and with it they're shooting for production of 1 Million pounds of food grown in the gardens of Freedom Gardeners all over the world.

Honestly, I'd be surprised if they don't exceed it. Drop in an give it a read and if you're so inclined, check out the Freedom Gardens website. It's a growing (pun intended) community of Freedom Gardeners all over the world.


I'm getting excited for this year and the ground's still frozen.
Coooommmeee onnnnn SSPPRRIINNGG!!!

Grow on all!
Looking forward to hearing your "numbers"!!
P~

"Big weigh-in" Spring/Summer wrap-up

Do you see that? Maybe you can't quite make it out...I'll help you out, It says Spring / Summer garden 511.68 lbs!!! WE DID IT! A~ and I set out this year to grow for 500 lbs and as of yesterday, we not only met, but exceeded that goal. With the days being pretty warm here, and the nights getting around freezing, even the plastic tarping wasn't helping the tomatoes to ripen as well as I'd hoped. (Although the cherry tomatoes are actually still producing.) That said, I decided that it was probably a good time to get out and harvest what was effectively the final harvest from the Spring and Summer garden.
A few of the tom's are still green and some not quite ripe, but all will be enjoyed in their own time. I honestly wasn't sure that we were actually going to be able to make the goal, this being the first year that we had ever aspired to even weigh all of our harvests. A~ on the other hand has seemingly turned into a pro harvest estimator; she said all along that we'd make it and what do you know, here we are.

The best part is, we're not even done completely yet. There's probably another couple of pounds on the cherry tomato, and I have fall planted spinach, beets and kohlrabi yet to harvest. Hopefully the weather will hold for a little longer to let them all bulk up a bit, but if not I have to say A~ and I are both pretty happy that we've been able to meet our goal.

So, what's next? A~'s already talking not doubling but tripling it next year. Um, does she realize that that's 1500 lbs??? Who am I to argue... I'm just the labor. I will say that the backyard expansion is already nearly done and should be by the end of the weekend. The next thing on the list is relocating the chickens for next year and then tilling up our "parking area" on the front side-yard of the house. You didn't think we'd just sit back and be satisfied did you?

Have a great weekend all.
P~

The "Big weigh-in" Update.

Just an FYI. I finally updated the "Big weigh-in" tonight. total this year we have harvested 262 lbs of veggies and 233 eggs from the chickens.
I think realistically we're shooting for about 350-400 lbs for this year total. Not to bad if I do say so. I'll try to keep it posted more often.
P~

2008 Garden update - Aug 4th

The update for today is...drum roll please... onions.
This was the first year I have ever planted onions and overall I am happy with the results and will definitely grow them again. I learned a few things along the way too. For instance, onions like to have very soft soil. I grew two different varieties a red and a yellow (sorry I can't remember the exact varieties.) and spread them out throughout different parts of the garden as a natural deterrent to some pest insects. This allowed me to see how they performed in different areas and I can say for sure that the onions in my raised beds overall performed much better.
I also think that the raised beds, because they are a higher quality soil, hold more water and release it more consistently allowing the onions to grow better.
The other thing that I learned is that you need to be patient when the onions start to look like they are done. I ruined about 6 or so of them by pulling them too early. Since I haven't ever grown them, I didn't know exactly what to look for as a sign of being mature so of course like everything else I experimented. Again, be patient. When the majority of the tops have fallen over, looking like some animal crept through your prized onion bed and knocked them all over, then wait a couple more days just to be sure. Then, what I did, was to gently pull the onion loose from the ground, but not all the way out. I left them to sit on the soil in the same way that I see the onions at the local farms sit. I left them to lay there during what were 95-103 deg days for about a week. After that I pulled them and laid them in my over size (3' x 2') garden sieve.
And here we were today after another few days. The onions had dried well and the papers on the outside were crackly and dry but the stalks were still semi pliable. I figured this to be the best time for me to try my hand at an onion braid. It's not as easy as you'd think it is.
So, whatya think? Not too bad for a first timer huh? There's actually two braids of the red onion but the second one was too short to put a good loop on the end so I laid in it front with the extras that I couldn't braid. So I bet your thinking how much? What's the poundage man...don't leave us hanging!! I'm proud to say we hit exactly 25 pounds between the two varieties. Oh yeah, and guess what that means? We're over 100 lbs for this year!!! Better yet, with the other things that we've taken in the last few days we're now over 125 lbs. This weekend should knock me up a few more pounds too with harvesting...oops, look at the time, my it's getting late, I'll have to get back with you on that one *grin*.
Hope all your gardens are growing well.
Grow on!!
P~

The Big Weigh-In 2008 7/28 (83 lbs)

OK, so the numbers aren't as impressive as 6000 lbs per 1/10 acre, but I think their pretty good considering so far we haven't yet really pulled any of the big crops such as cukes, tomatoes and zucchinis from the garden. (Yeah, I've gotten a few zukes but not too many yet.)
The grand total to date is just shy of 83 lbs of food. (82.87 or 1326-oz's to be really geeky) Most of that has come from strawberries and the heavier spring veggies like carrots and beets, but a good bit of lettuce and greens were brought in as well.

So, how about some numbers then eh? These are by no means all inclusive, but they do give a good idea of what's been producing around here.

• Strawberries.....................................................330 oz's - 20.625 lbs

• Baby Lettuce (mesclun).......................................46 oz's - 2.875 lbs

• Greens (kale, collard, spinach, chard)..............134.5 oz's - 8.406 lbs

• Kohlrabi............................................................60 oz's - 3.75 lbs

• Carrots..............................................................197 oz's - 12.31 lbs

• Peas (shelling)..................................................107 oz - 6.687 lbs

• Peas (Sugar Snap).............................................60 oz's - 3.75 lbs

Well, that gives you a good idea of what's been coming in this spring/early summer. Like I said, the numbers aren't huge but you never really notice how much baby lettuce it actually takes to make a pound of it until you keep track of the actual numbers; another benefit to keeping accurate records. Besides, we aren't vegetarians and the things that we've had come in we've able able to really enjoy on the table and have even put up a few things too.(More to come on that.) We've also had a total of 37 eggs so far since the three mature hens started laying on the 12th of July. The other girls should start around mid month next month, so that'll really help too. Every little bit goes toward our own food Independence, and is a welcome addition to the pantry. You can find my updated totals in the left column under the Big Weigh-In icon. I'll be doing my best to keep that Qty updated even if I don't have a chance to make a big update post.
I Hope all your gardens are blessing you with bounties as well.
Till next time.
P~

P.S. Thank you to Anais at PTF for the nod today. I owe much of my inspiration to you guys!

About the big weigh-in 2008 (record system)

This year, inspired by the phenomenal numbers of food production generated by the Dervaes family of Path To Freedom, (who would have ever thought 6000 lbs of food could be produced on 1/10 acre?) A~ and I decided to establish for ourselves a baseline of what we are and could be producing, weight-wise, of food from our little yard. So with that in mind we decided to keep records of every bit of food that we pull from our ground this year. A blogger I admire for their record keeping prowess is Farm Mom and I hoped to be as effective with ours. Although this is our first year keeping records, and they probably aren't as thorough as some, I think they're working out well so I thought I'd go into how we're doing the tracking of production for what I'm calling the "Big Weigh-in" for 2008 before getting into the actual numbers.
What we have for our process is two parts. The messy, dirty notebook above is where we write our day to day information in as it comes out of the yard. We can amend it multiple times a day and leave notes to ourselves if we need to. After we've collected a bit of "data", I transfer the information over to a permanent record book. In this book I have a daily total calculated in oz.'s, a running total in oz's, and a running total of lbs. At the top there's a small note space where I can leave notes to myself about things like the 9lbs of apricots that we harvested that weren't from our garden so they don't go in the actual records. I'm also keeping track of the total numbers of eggs that our chickens lay in this spot.
I think this will be an important tool to us in the future, and actually has proven helpful already in some unexpected ways. For instance, one of my neighbors who had been thinking of starting a garden for himself this year, was so impressed by just the early quantities of lettuces, peas and strawberries that he actually got on it and got his garden started for the summer. It was in this that I found that keeping track and establishing these concrete numbers of production don't just help me to keep track of what we've been able to accomplish. It helps to quantify to others what is possible. Just as I was so impressed by PTF's 6000 lbs of food, so too has my meager 80+ lbs to date, impressed others. It's just an added benefit.
The other main gain from keeping these kinds of records is that we'll be able to look back at the particulars of when different crops came to production and how long they produced and to what degree. I think in the future I'd like to start keeping more information relative to environmental circumstances too, like the daily highs/lows, and precip. totals (what little we get in the summer.) It will be just another asset to help me progress toward greater productivity as well as in my outreach efforts to get others growing for the future!
If your not already, I encourage you to start keeping records for yourself. It's fun to watch and track the numbers as they grow, and who knows, maybe you'll be growing for 10,000 yourself soon.
Updated production numbers to come.
P~