The Rewards

Early in the season I noticed that several bloggers were keeping a running total of their harvests and the monetary value associated with it. I decided to do the same but never quite mastered the gadget that would put it on the side panel of my blog. So I kept a journal record and entered it into a spreadsheet in late summer. I still have some broccoli out there and some parsnips, but I will credit them to next year's harvest. Today I ran the final totals.

Out of a 3o'x24' plot (with two 8x4 foot garlic beds outside) I yielded 382 pounds of produce at a conservative value of $647. I say conservative, because those luscious heirloom tomatoes I counted at a mere $1.26 per pound. (they sell at the farmer's market here for $4.99 a pound). I had put much hope early in the season in some French melons that fell to the cucumber beetles. And yet, as I look at the variety on this list I am impressed with the variety of crops I managed to plant even if the showings were small in categories like zucchini that in past seasons seemed to fly out of the garden.

But in my heart of hearts I know that this is only one way of counting rewards that come to me by tending this small plot. How do I put a price on coming eye to eye with a hummingbird while harvesting pole beans? How do you weigh the satisfaction of the smell of the first carrot you pull from the earth ... the first sliced warm tomato ... the spring dug parsnip chowder in April ... the bright green flavor of your first plate of asparagus? It's like the Visa ad, I guess ... priceless.

	Pounds	Ounces	Price	Value
Apples	1	3.3	$ 0.66	$ 0.80
Artichoke	1	4	$ 6.00	$ 7.50
Asparagus	28	9	$ 1.67	$ 47.70
Basil	1	4	$ 12.00	$ 15.00
Broccoli			$ 1.50
Brussels Sprouts	1	14.3	$ 1.25	$ 2.37
Butternut Squash	1	11.4	$ 1.01	$ 1.73
Carrots	1	8	$ 0.54	$ 0.81
Cucumbers	20	13	$ 0.75	$ 15.61
Eggplant		8.4	$ 0.97	$ 0.51
Garlic	21	12	$ 6.16	$ 133.98
Garlic Scapes	3	9	$ 6.00	$ 21.38
Green Beans	23	12.6	$ 1.07	$ 25.45
Greens	7	3	$ 1.51	$ 10.85
Onions		7	$ 0.55	$ 0.24
Peppers	1	4.7	$ 1.26	$ 1.63
Potatoes	2	8.5	$ 0.31	$ 0.78
Radishes	5	6	$ 3.04	$ 16.34
Salad Box	1	6.9	$ 9.85	$ 14.10
Shallots		11.9	$ 1.08	$ 0.80
Snap Peas	2	4	$ 3.52	$ 7.92
Tomatoes	235	4	$ 1.26	$ 296.42
Tomatoes Cherry	13	4	$ 1.93	$ 25.57
Zucchini	4	10.5	$ 1.26	$ 5.87
SUB TOTAL	371	179.5		$ 647.49
TOTAL	382.22

Happy Thanksgiving

waning light

After what felt like a weeks of rain , there were two soft days this weekend. The artichokes and rosemary are tucked away in their wall-o-waters, the dahlias have been dried and put away, and the garlic is sprouting nicely under its layer of grass clippings.

The light this time of year creates a strange mood. The angle from the south has the sun nearly always in your eyes and that same angle creates crisp landscapes on the bare trees when the sun is at your back.

Large parts of the garden live in shade most of the day. The broccoli I planted in early September SHOULD have been planted on an East-West line because the only crowning is happening on the lucky plant at the south end of the row. [Note to self for next year]

I look up from my work and read the shadows on the landscape thinking it must be five. It is barely quarter to three. I take a moment and sit one last time on the deck looking east out at the field. The sun warms my right shoulder ... a new feeling sitting in this place feeling the earth's orbit in strange bodily warmth.