After the past few cold blustery days, and a few overnight freezes, I think it’s safe to say growing season is officially over here in northern Iowa. I wrote down the last few jalapenos and peppers that we harvested last week (including several jalapenos from a plant that grew in our compost pile), and entered the totals in my spreadsheet.
Here’s how we did:
Total produce: 99.65 pounds. For the sake of easy reading, I’m going to round the decimal points. But the specific total was just shy of 100. If only we had one more tomato…
- Broccoli: 2 lbs.
- Butternut squash: 20 lbs.
- Garlic: under 1 lb. (really I think we only got one bulb – the rest never took off)
- Green beans: 14 lbs.
- Green peppers: 5 lbs.
- Jalapenos: 4 lbs.
- Onions: 3 lbs.
- Peas: just under 1 lb., although with the amount Jonah ate while picking them, probably over 1 lb.
- Potatoes: 3 lbs.
- Radishes: 3 lbs.
- Raspberries: 1/2 lb.
- Red pepper: under 1 lb. (only one pepper turned to red – the rest we harvested green)
- Strawberries: under 1 lb.
- Tomatoes: 37 lbs.
- Watermelon: 5 1/2 lbs.
The total does not include:
- 2 pumpkins, because we didn’t eat them. We just set them on the front porch for decoration.
- Any of the apples from our tree, because I didn’t feel like weighing the basket full all at once.
Overall, it was a pretty good haul for the minimal work and money we put into it. We probably spent around $50 on seeds, starter plants, tools, and buckets. I should have kept the receipts so I could tell for sure, but I didn’t.
Most of the food we ate right away, although we still have some green beans and tomatoes in the freezer. I was going to attempt canning, but I didn’t have the right tools at the right time, so I just chose to freeze things instead. There’s always next year.
We went into this year pretty much knowing nothing, and eager to try a lot of different things. We learned quite a bit.
That’s the story of our garden this year. We still have to get it ready for winter. Jesse wants to mow down the remaining weeds and cover the garden so that they’ll all die before next year, and we have a pretty thriving compost pile to spread on there in the spring. Any other tips for our first winter?
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