2021 Garden Assessments and Conclusions

This year's garden was definitely a big win.  When you end up producing more food than you can consume, I would call that a success!  It turns out, you can't eat enough zucchini, pears, tomatoes or green beans and you can't can them fast enough either, especially when the yield is a gradual one, and doesn't come in all at once (thus canning the bulk food when it's "fresh").  I even ended up carving up a few zucchini for Halloween decorations to finally put them to some sort of use!

We have been picking food pretty consistently since July.  I'm sorry to say I've thrown away way more pears than we could eat, can or give away.  I wanted to make pear cider this year, but some personal events happened that occupied my time this summer, so I wasn't able to get some of the supplies I needed in time (fruit crusher, juicer, etc.).

While I was gone for two weeks in September, a rain and wind storm rolled through our area, knocking over my tomato cages and weakening the green bean strings.  My romaine lettuce all died out (I think the sprinkler was mostly missing them), but the baby artichoke plants look happy these days!  The corn was slow-growing and finally died out by the end of October (got smothered by the neighboring fallen tomato plants), and the cucumbers have produced 4 small fruits before dying off.  The new apple tree only yielded five apples, and after trying one a bit prematurely, I lost another to a critter, and still waiting on the remaining three to formally ripen up.

I managed to get about 20 potatoes of various sizes out of their large terracotta pot, most of which were edible and thrown into a crock pot on a rainy day with some stew meat and carrots.  I did the first of the "final" harvests on the tomatoes and blended them up in the Vitamix to make a basic tomato sauce that I put in a Ziplock and stuck in the freezer for use later in the winter (I will do one last harvest before the first frost of the year).  I also blended up some zucchinis to make a quick soup on a future cold winter day.

I planted carrot and broccoli starters as fall crops (green onions are already growing), and some pre-planted garlic bulbs are starting to come in!   I'm thinking about planting beets as well, but I have to learn how to roast them first, so I can eat them my preferred way.

I visited two of our local farms on Halloween weekend, as most start closing up for the winter until next season.  I picked up some bulk apples, peppers, onions, garlic, honey, walnuts, dried apricots, dried cranberry, honey and a whopping 16-lbs cabbage head that I chopped into 7 quarts of sauerkraut!  It was so big, traditional kitchen knives wouldn't work, so my husband used a machete to cut it into wedges for me.  😂

Hopefully I have another great pear yield next year, and I can finally make some cider.  I'll only plant one zucchini plant next year, and cut back on the lettuce and tomato plant quantity.

Food and supply shortages are rumored to occur this winter due to supply chain issues, so hopefully I'll have at least some good provisions stocked to get us through.  Between my canning and the monthly Azure bulk food orders, I think we'll be mostly alright through the winter (except for meat, dairy and egg purchases, which we'll still have to get through the local stores).

I had a great time experimenting and learning more about gardening this season and I can't wait to rock it again next year!  Seed-starting is coming up in a couple of months, so I get to start planning for that... stay tuned!!