Soil Test Results

When we got the soil test back, it turned out that our basic nutrients – nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus – were literally off the charts.  It looked exactly like two idiots not following directions and fertilizing too much.  But we don't fertilize at all, except for an annual dose of Miracle Grow that my husband puts on the tomatoes despite my protests.  We certainly haven't been going nuts with it.

 Oh, and our soil consistency was clay.  I think we’re going to try cover crops to break up the clay soil.   A free consultation with an agronomist came with our soil test, and he suggested adding sand, but I'm leery of doing that in case we get concrete instead.

 The soil consistency is better than it was when we started in 2011 so that’s something….

2023 Garden Totals

 

Carrots: Your size may vary....

Very tall sunflowers....

 

We didn't weigh sunflower seeds, mostly because we were unable to get to them before the birds and squirrels did.  But sunflowers were about the only thing that did really well this year.  I guess beans did OK. But I planted a lot of them. Strawberries were impressive.  But some of our regulars were duds.  Glad I'm not depending on the garden to get us through the winter.....

Totals, in pounds:

Asparagus - .5
Purple Beans - 21.1
Potatoes - 2.5
Cherry Tomatoes - .1
Tomatoes - 99.7
Okra - 0  (First total fail on okra EVER!  Normally, you just toss the seed over your shoulder and walk away.  We replanted THREE times - no success.)
Garlic - 1.6
Squash - 15.2
Carrots - 1.5
zucchini - 15.8
Kholrabi - 8.1
Peppers - .9
Beets - 8.7
Radishes - .3
Armenian Cucumbers - 3.7
Strawberries - 13.2
Leeks - 1.4
Watermelon - 23.4

Total - 217.7 pounds

Expenses, including absurdly expensive watering cans and self-watering tubs that required potting soil to work (boo!), more PVC hoops, binder clips, a new leaf chopper and a soil test: $607.50.

Normally, the garden isn't nearly that expensive.  But anyway, the total was $2.79 a pound, which if you consider that all of that is organic and fresh, really isn't that bad.  But I'm hoping for much better the next time we garden.

My Christmas letter had lower totals because I had forgotten the leeks and the watermelon.

Getting ready to plant garlic

First Soil Test

 We probably should have done this a long time ago....

I'm pretty sure it's going to come with something like: This is clay.  You should make pottery and not try to grow stuff.

Organizing, a Life-Long Task

 I found this when I was cleaning and organizing.  Based on the handwriting and the fact that I thought I might make friends with the neighbor girl, Kristy Krull (didn't happen). I'm guessing about I'm about 8 years old here.

 Now that my husband is working from home full-time and he's moved his stuff to his man cave downstairs, I asked him the other day if he was going to empty the bottom drawer of one of the two filing cabinets that makes up my desk.  He replied, "Oh, that's not my stuff.  That's a bunch of your old grad school stuff."

He was right.

Obviously, I don't need it if I never knew I had it, right? I'd recycled almost everything related to my dissertation a few years ago. So I sorted through the drawer of folders and notebooks and tossed everything I didn't want or that brought back bad memories. But I was surprised how much I wanted to keep. It was a time of growth and exploration. I especially loved my Milton class and I had great fun with a project I did for a Renaissance Lyric Poetry class. I was also surprised that I wrote with such liveliness. My academic papers rarely sounded academic. I'm surprised my professors let me get away with that! I'm also surprised how much I trusted them - I looked through notes and things and found I was very open with them about my intellectual struggles.

Looking through drafts of seminar papers and pages of notes felt like meeting someone I used to know, only the someone was me.

Summer = Strawberries

Summer has officially arrived! This morning I went out and gathered enough strawberries for my oatmeal.

And so it begins....

 I have big plans this year!  We are starting a lot more under grow lights so we can do more mulching.  Currently under grow lights: leeks, lettuce, peas, kohlrabi, beets, and tomatoes.

Garden Total by Crop

In pounds... 

beans = 17.8 

cherry tomatoes = 4.3 

tomatoes = 126.5 

okra = 18.4 

garlic = 5 

broccoli = 1.1 

carrots = 10.4 

zucchini = 43.3 

kholrabi = .4 

bell peppers = 1.5 

beets = 3.4 

radishes = 1.5 

peas = .5 

cucumbers = 39.3 

snake melon = 18.5 

Total 292.1 

Not weighed: chives, lettuce, oregano, basil, thyme, kale, and mint. We got LOTS of kale. 

Total cost for the garden this year = $503.82. 

Wow - that is WAY more than we usually spend! But we had a bunch of what I call capital improvements, including a new arrangement for our grow lights, PVC and plastic for hoop tunnels, fresh strawberry plants (cultivar = Sparkle), a new trellis (fence panel + T-posts), and, most expensive of all, $150 worth of goumi berry bushes. Despite this sky-high cost, we still came out with a total of $1.73 per pound of fresh, organic produce. That is actually not too bad. Next year we might add more hoops. Or we might not. The original plan was to add some each year until every bed has an option of hoops, if we want them, but I'm not sure we made very good use of them. In any event, next year's costs should be much lower.