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Tuesday, October 19, 2010

378lbs and Counting

Despite the blight on my tomatoes, bugs on my squash and bean plants, and of course my ever so helpful babies; we have grown 378 pounds of food so far in my little gardens.  Can you believe that?  This is my chart - which may seem a bit ridiculous to some (super high tech I know), but I wanted to see how "worth" the effort gardening was going to be.  So, every morning after picking I would log what was what - for example 2 large cucumbers equaled a pound, 10-12 okra equaled a pound, 2 large tomatoes equaled a pound, etc.  Definitely not a fail proof method, especially since my girls tend to pick and eat- completely ignoring mommy's logging method, and obviously I guesstimated quite a bit, but I don't think it's a gross over-estimation by any means.

So, just in case you are wondering, my garden is still kicking.  We are picking tomatoes (which have jumped back now that it's not 120 degrees out), okra, cucumbers, wax beans, green beans, peas, bell peppers, basil, Swiss chard, collards, lettuce, radishes, carrots, and hopefully soon winter squash (that was just planted so it'll be a while).  I fully anticipate the collards and Swiss chard to go all winter long too.  Isn't gardening in Bama crazy?  Actually, I think the reason that everything has done so well is because it had to have an extreme will to live - babies and their feet are not so attentive or forgiving to tender little plants.  Add in a couple cats and dogs and I'm surprised everything wasn't trampled to death back in May. 

In all seriousness, the only things original in the big garden now are the pepper plants, the okra, basil and my big, beautiful German heirloom tomato plant.  Everything else has done it's thing, been yanked out, then re-planted with something else. 

I've decided that you must have a tenacious personality to garden; unless of course you are my sister who grew an entire crop of tomato plants without planting anything (Trac, are you kidding me?)  Regardless, I'm feeling a little proud - not too bad for a city chick on a 1/4 acre lot, and very blessed.

"Patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness." 

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