The Modern Victory Garden

I updated the September harvest tally this morning.   I keep a spreadsheet that recaps the daily harvests and it makes it pretty easy to do this monthly update.   The only challenge I have been encountering in tracking the harvest - is to actually remember to weigh things before I use them for meal preparation or snacking!   I can assure you that the berry tally is grossly understated because of this.  

You can see the details of the harvest recap HERE.   The total poundage for September was a sizeable 266 lbs, which brings the year-to-date total up to 545 lbs.   This was a particularly high weight month because I harvested the remaining potatoes, pumpkins, winter squash, and corn.   I have never bothered to track production like this before, so it has been an interesting and illuminating exercise.   While it is definitely exciting and gratifying to see large harvest results for certain crops - I think it is important not to focus on sheer volume as a measure of success in the food production garden.   More important to me is whether our Modern Victory Garden:

• Produces a sufficient variety of foods to keep our menu options robust and our appetites peaked
• Produces a good yield per square foot of bed space
• Provides enough of each vegetable to provide our yearly needs with maybe a little extra to share
• Produces fresh food throughout the year - even in the winter months as a supplement to the preserved items

Thinking about the garden's results in those terms provides some interesting feedback and points to areas where improvements could be made.       

SUFFICIENT VARIETY

I would give the 2009 garden an A minus in this category. Expanding the garden this year was a big help.                                 

(new beds shortly after construction - spring 2009)             

The addition of three new large beds and a new vertical grow support bed added a considerable amount of additional bed space that allowed me to use some of the older beds for perennial plantings and to add some items that were only grown occasionally before  due to space limits (like corn).   In fact, in this category I think I have erred on the side of having too many different items when I should probably increase production or add back some favorites and forego some of the "we like it well enough but don't love it" items like beets and kohlrabi.   We always eat them and they never go to waste.   They are fun to look at and grow.   But the truth is, none of us really adore them and I would probably be better served to use the bed space for something we would consume with more gusto.                    

GOOD YIELD PER SQUARE FOOT OF BED SPACE

I would give the 2009 garden a B grade in this category.   The Buttercup squash were beautiful and heavy fruits (are great tasting too!) - but averaged just a little over one fruit per plant.                       

(fall 2009 Buttercup squash & pumpkin harvest)           

Big space user and not that great of a yield for the space occupied.   I think I will grow Butternut next year which is a significantly heavier producer with much the same eating quality and characteristics of Buttercup.   I will probably grow fewer plants though as we really do not need much more winter squash fruits overall - just better yield per space used.   On the plus side of the scoring though, the Butte potatoes were prolifically productive and will get a bigger allocation of space next year as a result.   The horizontal pea trellis experiment also greatly increased my shelling pea production and will be used again next year.                            

(shelling peas growing on horizontal trellis support)            

PROVIDES ENOUGH OF EACH VEGETABLE FOR OUR YEARLY NEEDS

I would give the 2009 garden a B minus grade in this category.  It would have been an A plus were it not for the tomatoes going down to blight just as the harvest was ramping up.  I was forced to purchase some tomatoes from the farmers market to supplement because this is the second year in a row that we had a less than adequate tomato harvest and my family was probably going to rebel on me if we went yet another year with limited tomato products.   I think every other crop has produced a more than sufficient quantity to meet our seasonal and yearly requirements.    Things I plan to do differently next year to try and turn this into an A plus score:

• Going to space the tomatoes further apart which means there will be less plants per bed but they will get better air circulation.
• Going to remove the smaller containers from the greenhouse and replace them with 4 more half whiskey barrels to add to my current 3. Of these, four will be planted up with tomatoes and 3 will be peppers.   I had too many pepper plants (which thrived in the greenhouse) and no back up tomatoes in the protection of the greenhouse to fall back on when disease hit the plants in the outside beds.
• Planning to use a regimen of organic fungicide spray on the tomatoes.

PRODUCES FRESH FOOD THROUGHOUT THE YEAR

In this category it is a bit premature to give a final grade yet.   I will go out on a limb though and say that I think this will be an A plus this year.   The carrots are particularly beautiful and I have four different (quite large) plantings of them that are mature and going into the fall / over wintering period at optimal size.     

(carrots and parsnips in the fall garden)             

The parsnips are bigger sized and the germination and yield were better this year.   The winter cabbages are further along and should be a good food supply this fall and again in late winter early spring.   I have several swiss chard plants in pots that are ready to move into the greenhouse to provide fresh greens throughout the season.   The kale is maturing and should be ready just when everything else is starting to give up or be over harvested.

So the poundage results are good and the overall report card on my personal Modern Victory Garden expectations would indicate a B plus performance for the 2009 garden so far.  

Is your food production garden meeting your goals and expectations this year?