That's a question I heard several times each month all summer long. Especially when people found out that I had decided to challenge myself to grow my garden mostly, (about 90%) from seeds - no buying plants this year. I wanted to see if I could save money buy planting seeds that I saved. I kept hearing, How's your garden doing? and When are you going to do a blog post, so we can read about it? Well now that I've been putting the garden to bed for the winter, I've gone through my garden photos and here's the 2013 progress report:
Here is an overview of the garden from our deck, taken the middle of July. Let's walk out to the garden and I will give you a tour of the beds, starting on the North side, (the bed to the right).
The far North bed is our potato bed. This year we did NOT buy any seed potatoes, but used the left over potatoes that had started to sprout roots. Even though the potatoes were smaller the previous years we were able to harvest about 35 pounds of potatoes from the box. We planted late this year, (mid April), because of the heavy spring rain and late snowfalls. But we were able to harvest about 3 pounds for the 4th of July to make potato salad, and a couple of times for dinner. Not bad for FREE !!
The next bed was our tomato and tomatillo bed. We purchased 4 tomatillo plants for a total cost of $3.00, but all the tomato plants were started from seeds that I have been saving from prior years. I purchased most of them years ago for 10 cents a package, and 1 package for 49 cents. I started 75 seeds in mid February in little egg cartons, then in April transferred them to newspaper cups that I made. When we went on vacation in May, I lost a couple dozen, (they didn't get watered and got too hot in the bay window). But I ended up setting out 50 plants!! And they grew like crazy during our unusually hot summer heat.
Because my tomato plants were smaller when I set them out at the end of May, we didn't get tomatoes until the end of July, first of August. But we sure did get a bumper crop. We were able to share tomatoes with family, friends, and neighbors. They were the best tasting tomatoes. I canned 16 quarts, and we are still eating tons of tomatoes. I have boxes of green tomatoes ripening in the garage. I would go out twice a week and bring in a box like this. I would bake bread and we enjoyed tomato sandwiches, (yummy). Total cost this year for tomatoes, FREE !!! Also, our tomatillos have been abundant. We have enjoyed lots of green salsa and I have 6 quart bags in the freezer for this winter, (I can just taste the pork chili verde now!!!) Total cost for tomatillo plants $3.00
In the middle bed was our peppers. Last years I saved some green pepper seeds from one of my pepper plants. And I plants the seeds in egg cartons, later transferring them to newspaper cups. We have been enjoying FREE green peppers and a few I have left on the plants to turn red. So I also have enjoyed FREE red peppers. They have been so good in salads, and dishes. Total cost for red and green peppers, FREE!!
Same thing with our yellow peppers. I saved some seeds from one of our yellow peppers last year and we had some FREE delicious yellow peppers. So sweet and delicious.
I also saved some seeds from an Anaheim pepper, and had FREE peppers for my salsa. There is nothing better than scrambled eggs with an Anaheim pepper chopped up in it. And FREE makes it taste so much better.
I love to cook with fennel, and I had an old packet of seeds from several years ago, so I thought what the heck - if it grows great, if it doesn't grow, it didn't cost me anything. It took forever, but in July we finally got fennel growing. And it is so delicious. I use this a lot with pork recipes, and I got a new cabbage and fennel coleslaw recipe from Bobby Flay's show that is really good.
Speaking of cabbage, we did purchase 4 cabbage starts for a costs of $1.79. And the first 2 heads I harvested weighed in around 5 pounds and these last 2 heads have been pushing 10 pounds. I have 1 in the garage that we will enjoy later this month. We have enjoyed, stuffed cabbage rolls, Chinese coleslaw, regular coleslaw, and cooked cabbage. I didn't make any sauerkraut this year, (we still have some left over from last year).
I purchased 1 dill plant for $1.50, and broke apart the plant when I put it in the ground. It has been a real good producer. We have enjoyed lots of dill and onion dill, (a really easy and delicious recipe that I have - everyone at our 4th of July part loved it). Now we are getting dill seed heads, and I will harvest these for use this winter. This was a pretty good investment.
This was an average harvest from our garden - I would tell Dave that this was my "Bountiful Basket" We have green beans - (OH by the way, my green beans were FREE. I saved some of my beans from last years and planted them and so all our beans this year were free!!! We have 25 quarts of beans pressured canned and sitting in our pantry for this winter.), zucchini, tomatillo, tomatoes, sweet peppers, lettuce, cucumbers, (the cucumbers were a package I purchased for 79 cents this year). Can you see how big the cabbage head is?
I just haven't had much luck with zucchini. Don't know why, but I decided to give another try. This year I purchased a new package of seeds for $1.59 We did get a few zucchini, but not an abundant amount. I kept it picked while it was small and make chocolate zucchini bread, (every one's favorite), spaghetti sauce, and froze 2 small bags of shredded zucchini for chocolate bread making later.
In the far south bed, of course we have our strawberries which did wonderful this year. This is the 3rd year for them and they are getting bigger each year. We have enjoyed breakfast smoothies, a strawberry pie, strawberry deserts, and I have about 6 quart bags frozen for this winter. I am so glad I put these sweet beauties in our first year. We have so enjoyed them - now if I can just keep the birds away. Another FREE yummy item from our garden.
We also have our peas in this bed, which were another FREE item. I saved some peas from last year, dried them and planted them in the spring. We enjoy a couple of meals and I froze a couple of bags for this winter. Eating delicious sweet peas is wonderful, and FREE makes them better.
And of course I have to have my basil. This year I have my sweet basil and some Thai basil. Last winter I saw the Thai basil plant at Walmart for $1.00 and thought "why not' The sweet basil seeds were FREE seeds that I got years ago from a trade show. They have been a good growing seed. I am now down to my last package - may have to break down and buy new seeds.
This bed also had our winter onions. I purchased a bundle for $1.25 The onions are small, but that's my fault. I didn't decide to plant them for winter onions until May. I set out a bunch for spring green onions and then finally decided to plant the rest for winter harvest. But we have quite a few, but I can buy a 25 pound bag at Reams for $4.00, so I'm not sure I will do this again next year, maybe just stick to the green eating onions.
I ran out of room in my garden and I had seeds from butternut squash that I saved. So I planted them at the side of the house. But because of the late spring, they didn't get into the garden until the middle of June. The squash is smaller than what we get in the store, but it's very good, and we got a nice box full in the garage. I shared some with a friend. Again it was a FREE item from our garden.
I also saved some spaghetti squash seed last year that I planted in June at the side of the house. Since it went into the ground so late, it also is small in size, but it's good squash and it's another FREE item from our garden. I have a box in our garage.
Dave wanted some pie pumpkins this year, so we purchased a package of Early Sugar Pumpkin seeds for $1.79. I planted these on the east side, down by the fruit trees. It you look carefully you might be able to count the 7 pumpkins growing in the vines.
We also planted corn down here on the other side of the fruit trees, the seed costs us $1.59. We ate lots, shared it with family when they came over, and I have several bags of cut corn in the freezer for this winter.
Our peach tree FINALLY produced, (thanks to the honey bees that nested in our front shrubs this year). We had an abundant crop of peaches. We shared with family, friends, and neighbors. We canned 10 quarts, froze 2 bags, and ate so many peaches that I thought I was going to start growing peach fuzz. They were so juicy and the most delicious we had ever tasted. Gotta' get more bees. Our pear tree was very generous again this year also.
Oh look - one of Dave's pumpkins!! And it's a good sized one.
Finally, let's walk over to the far west side of the house next to the fence. Here I planted these beautiful tall sunflowers. I got these seeds for FREE about 6 years ago from the county fair. When I picked up 2 packets, Dave asked "just where are you going to plant those, we have no room at our house". I answer "no, no yet". We grew sunflowers 7 and 8 feet tall. I kept 4 blooms in the garage to gather the sunflower seeds for roasting, and maybe a few for planting in future years. They were a nice freebie.
Well, I think I've covered all of our garden. Next year we'll have to try to schedule the tour for earlier in the year. Right now we've got most of the beds cleared out. There's still some carrots to harvest, the strawberries need covered over for winter, and the asparagus needs trimmed back. The potato bed has already been tilled over and this week 3 more beds will get tilled. There are 4 pumpkins harvested and we are waited for the others to ripen so we can pick them. It was a lot of work, and a lot of waiting for the seeds to sprout and then transplanting and waiting for the seedlings to get big enough to plant. But in the end it was so worth it. And knowing that if I have to grow my food from seeds, I can probably do it.
SO - How's YOUR garden doing? I'm interested in your tips and tricks.
