Taking Stock & Tallying Up the Harvests

2014 has proven to be a challenging year for us in the garden department.

We started out with the best of intentions and a bazillion seeds and ended up with failed germination rates, poor purchased and gifted transplants, loads of distractions, pest problems up the wazoo, and a sudden (though happy) move just a few short weeks ago.

Given all this, and despite the incredibly wonderful wet summer we were gifted with for the first time in years and years and years, our harvests were slow to come and few and far between.  I’ve been keeping notes on a notepad instead of in my fancy pants spreadsheet and have thought often about how our move has basically solidified the fact that we will never recoup the monetary investment we put into the yard and garden.  I’ve also been doing my very best to remember that every harvest is a good harvest and that the work we put into our urban farm was not to get it all back in the end, but instead to enjoy it while we were there!

Still, when I started thinking it was about time to add everything up, there was some serious resistance and a subtle sense of failure in the knowledge that this year has been our worst year since we began keeping track in 2011.  There have been no excess beans to put up, the cukes failed miserably, the squash (though usually abundant) were thoroughly overtaken by borers and more than half of our small crop of tomatoes completely failed.

And yet, I am still so proud of our little Urban Farm…of the apple trees that did wonderfully and the herbs that grew abundantly…of the succession planting I finally got in (yay for late carrots and beets and a fall garden that is doing wonderfully) and the strawberries that are spreading like wildfire…of the echinacea that continues to thrive and the compost that is still waiting to be moved to our new home…of the trailing chrysanthemum and the volunteer tomatillos…of a few divinely juicy pears and more eggs than we had time to count.

So, with past harvest totals of this season (here, here, here, and here) added to the list below and the few items that have yet to come from the garden (but will have to soon), I will, in the end, create our final harvest page with all of the harvests that were tracked this year and notes about what was not, simply to complete the glimpse into our urban farm and I will do so with pride and a tinge of sadness.

• Bush Beans – 1 lb 14 oz
• Radish – 2 oz
• Tomatoes – 33 lb 3 oz
• Mint – 1 lb 4 oz
• Basil – 1 lb 5 oz
• Jalapenos – 12 oz
• Carrots – 1 lb
• Apples – 14 lbs
• Sweet Corn – 5 lb 2 oz
• Beets – 1 lb 4 oz
• Grapes – 8 oz
• Lemon Cucumbers – 8 oz
• Summer Squash – 8 oz
• Tomatillos – 4 oz
• Garlic (no weight)
• Chamomile (no weight)

Maybe it is the crisp fall air hanging over us this morning or maybe it all of the transition our little family has seen over the past year or so, but I am reminded that our experiences cannot (and should not) be boiled down to sheer numbers.  Our lives are much deeper than the black and white of my previously beloved and currently abandoned spreadsheet.  The experiences of Sprout eating fresh beans, apples, carrots, and strawberries straight out of the garden and knowing wholeheartedly that she was safe to do so…The knowledge that what has been created in that space allowed for meditations and reflections and so many wonderful meals.

Those little moments are what our whole edible gardening journey has been about, not the pounds and ounces of it all.

xoxo,
M