tally-ho for 2009 garden

The garden/chickens only produced 7.2 lbs for the month of December, but hey, it's winter.

Grand announcement-- the 2009 garden produced 692.5 lbs of food.

That's food we ate (and we have eaten almost all of it) and it was organic, fresh, delicious and as local as food can get!

I fully expect next year to produce much more. This past year's apple crop was non-existant. Well, four or five apples. The year before we got baskets and baskets of apples. I'm already planning out the garden for 2010 and while I do not expect the chickens to do quite as well, I expect the garden to do even better. I really want to grow more of the food we need to buy in the grocery store.

Of the new things I tried I was most impressed with Chinese cabbage and Fortex beans. The Chinese cabbage did well in both the spring and in the fall. It sure was a lot more productive than the regular cabbage! The Fortex beans were delicious and productive (and an heirloom seed gift from my mother!) I was totally unimpressed with the eggplant and the watermelon. The yard long beans did well and were interesting but I was the only one in the family who really liked them. Kohlrabi was interesting to grow and delicious to eat but it sure didn't produce much food for all the space it took up. Swiss chard was ok. It grew ok but it's no one's favorite vegetable. Most of the rest of the stuff I grew I've grown for many years and is very reliable, ie bush beans, tomatoes, onions, garlic, peas, cucumbers, etc.