2011 Harvest Totals & Thoughts

Closed for the season: this guy spends his winter as a boot guard at our front door.

The garden is closed and packed away for the year. A midst a weekend of both rain and snow (very early for Boston) Gail and I hurriedly closed down the garden and finished winterizing on Sunday. It's a bit on the early side, but the weather has been crazy & I have lots going on with work and life, and there wasn't much left to do. For record keeping purposes here is a look at this year's harvest/
2011 Harvest Totals:
Arugula: 2.45 oz
Basil: 2.21 lbs
Carrots: 4.18 lbs
Dill: 1.35 oz
Garlic: 1.11 lbs
Horseradish: 1.44 lbs
Huckleberry: 1.80 lbs
Lettuce: 1.96 lbs
Kale: 1.53 lbs
Marjoram: 2.35 oz
Mesclun Greens: 11.95 oz
Mint: 1.0 oz
Parsley: 1.35 oz
Peppers:
--Bell 3.87 lbs
--Cubanelle 2.63 lbs
--Gypsy 1.89 lbs
--Jalapeno 2.63 lbs
--Wax 3.68 lbs
Radish: 1.48 lbs
Rosemary: 3.00 oz
Sage: 7.60 oz
Scallions: .85 oz
Swiss Chard: 11.45 oz
Tomato: 29.38 lbs
Walking Onion 7.45 oz
2011 Total: 64.57 lbs (1033.19)
This is just a hair over last year's total of 63.84 lbs! Between the 2 growing season's the quantities were vastly different in some cases, and almost the same in others.
There were a few total failures this year:  no beets, broccoli, bush beans, dry beans,  leeks, & zucchini grew at all this year.
The failures were offset with some great success's. The carrots, chives, horseradish, huckleberry, peppers, radish, sage, and tomatoes did really well. I won't be growing the huckleberries next year - they tasted downright terrible fresh, though they have a much better taste cooked with sugar for jam purposes they were a nice addition for my cranberry jalapeno jam. I still have some frozen, along with cranberries for another batch next year! I over planted horseradish and took home more then enough for the condiment and for re-planting!
I was happy with the walking onions, and will continue replanting some! Most of the herbs did really well too, especially the sage which really took off.
This year was a hectic but fun season gardening and I am already planning for next years season!!

Final Harvest Monday 10/24/2011

It's that time, the final harvest for 2011 was this past week. Aside from some leftover herbs we also harvested a fairly nice pile of horseradish:

The root on the far left of the above photo was definitely the biggest, coming in at about 6 ounces, it was about the size of a fairly large parsnip! I managed to save 8 good sized roots to plant  and pass on to others as well.
All in all I was able to pull nearly 1.4 lbs of horseradish root out of the ground!!! Given how deep the roots went, I don't think I managed to get them all, and it wouldn't surprise me if there were a few volunteer horseradish plants popping up next year.
Here's what made up the final harvest for 2011:
Chives 5.00 oz
Dill .35 oz
Marjoram .90 oz
Rosemary .75 oz
Sage 1.65 oz
Horseradish 1.3875 lbs (22.20 oz)
Total for the week: 1.93 lbs (30.85 oz)
Total for the 2011 growing season: 64.57 lbs!!
Just a hair under 3/4 of a pound more then we grew last year, which makes Gail very happy! I will have a recap and breakdown posted sometime next week.
All that is left to do in our little plot is clean up and put the garden to bed!

If you want to see what others are harvesting or share in your own bounty, stop by Daphne's Dandelions, the home of Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday November 15th 2010 (Final Harvest)

This week marks my final harvest of 2010. Picture above is the last of what was growing for this year in the garden:
Kale 1.996 lbs
Bringing the grand total for my first season of gardening too: 63.84 lbs!!!
I am incredibly proud of all the hard work Gail & I have done over the season. We went into this with no previous knowledge and experience with gardening and managed to produce a bounty worth being proud of!
We aren't seasoned pros or experienced gardeners, but we will certainly take our experiences with us into next years garden. Hopefully we will be even more successful!
Just because we are done harvesting for the year doesn't mean the blog will stop, in fact it will pick up with garden recaps, cooking, and future plans so stay tuned!!
Below are a couple of pictures of plot Z-1 at the Fenway Victory Gardens laid to rest until the spring...


If you want to see what others are harvesting or share in your own bounty, stop by Daphne's Dandelions the home of Harvest Monday.