Garden Totals for 2012

456 Pounds of Produce

The grand total for all of our 2012 garden harvests adds up to 456 lbs of delicious top quality fresh food.  We preserved (bottled) a lot of our surplus for later eating, lots of tomatoes, beets, pickles, salsa etc.  We actually had some great bottled beets tonight for dinner, they add a nice color and variety to the dinner plate.  The kids loved how it turned their rice purple.

$861.71 Worth in Produce

So when we add up what all our garden goodness would cost in the store, we come up with $861.71!
That's over $71 per month in fresh off the vine and straight to the table fruit and veggies.

We used normal everyday pricing gathered througout the year.  We did not collect the organic pricing, which our food would stack up well against.  When you look at organic produce, you see a very high premium.

I would place our food above organic, we used beyond organic methods and techniques.  We are learning and progressing in our understanding of permaculture and other beyond organic methods. 

Soil

We have already started to plant our spring gardens.  We are amazed at how great our soil is, its rich, moist and dark.  It is a dream to dig and plant in.  We have used zero fertilizer and have built up our beds with worm castings (from our worm bins), leaves and grass clippings.  We also have incorporated Woody Beds (hugelculture) into most of our beds reducing water demands.  We are also amazed at how much life we find in the soil, its full of great insect life.

2013: Looking Forward

We look forward to this year, we hope to grow far more than last year in the same space.  We also are expanding our gardens out into the field behind us, planting in swales and contour beds.  We hope to greatly expand our harvest with this small area, we also plan to plant some pumpkins, squash and goards for market too.