Friday, December 11, 2020

How Much Produce did the Tiny House Garden Grow?


Now that I have a bit more time to catch up on some things thanks to winter slowing my life down, at least compared to summer, I wanted to check in on how the garden actually produced this year. Does the work it takes to grow fresh food here produce something useful? How much food did I get? This year I did something I've never taken the time to do before and weighed all the various things the garden grew as I harvested them so I would know the total poundage of food produced through the year. What would you guess that total ended up being? Read to the end to find the answer! And then comment and tell me what your guess was as I am curious to hear. 

The last update here on the blog about the garden, was just as I was starting to harvest a lot of things. And then I did one video just before everything started to freeze really hard again if you want to see what that looked like. 



The gopher proof beds have continued to work well. And though the little guys tunneled and munch all through the yard, old garden area, herb beds, flowers, etc. they did not get to one thing in the veggie beds. 


Through the summer the purple cabbages expanded so their leaves shaded all the ground around them well before they started to form heads. Planting the beds in a staggered pattern like that allows me to get more stuff in a smaller space while the plants I want fill all the space leaving almost no room for weeds to try to grow. 


After cutting the main broccoli heads the plants continued to produce an on going crop of nice side shoots every few days through the fall.


The beans, one of the few things I try to grow that are almost not cold hardy enough for summers here, finally started to bloom.


The onions grew thick and strong. 


Green cabbage, there are two varieties pictured above, always starts to form heads faster than the purple varieties. 


The garlic started to form scapes. Those curly bits on top that would turn into garlic flowers if I didn't eat them first. 


The potato plants all grew lush and green. I had four varieties growing, Yukon Gold, Red, German Butterball, and Blue. The blue's even flowered with a slightly blue blossom!



The peas which had started blooming several weeks earlier started to become weighted down the all the peas filling out. 


I really enjoy just looking at and walking through the garden. It brings me a sense of peace and contentment. 


Those peas swelled a little more and I was able to harvest my first baskets full. 




Garlic scapes were cut and added to various meals. They taste just like garlic cloves but with a fresh green color. 


I dug some horseradish root to make another batch of fire cider (see that recipe here if you missed it!). 




The garlic was the first crop to be totally harvested as it's leaves started to die back.


While other things like cabbages and onions continued to swell. 




I started to harvest carrots, pulling handfuls to eat and letting the rest continue to grow.


Zucchini and summer squash started to form on their plants. The thing other than beans that I try to coax into surviving all the frosts and freezes.


The lush green potato plants started to yellow and die back as they reached the natural end of their life.


You can see the onions starting to form the protective drier layers around the outside as the bottom leaves started to yellow and die back as well.


Meanwhile cabbages really started to swell, now turning into nice big solid heads. 


The various kales thrive here in any weather as they love the cold.


The "green" beans started to weigh down their plants. Like everything else where I enjoy growing many colors, I had green, yellow, purple, and red "green" beans.



Though always slower than the green cabbages, the purple ones started to get nice little heads going. 


I get a lot of questions about how I keep the wildlife from eating the garden. There is a fence the whole way around the clearing that I keep up all summer. (See that here if you like.) But any time a tree branch or something falls across part of it, there are critters like this deer waiting to come in! So I check the whole perimeter regularly and just put it back up every time that happens.


As the summer winds down, you can see the yellowing leaves on many of the plants. 


From early in the year on, I cut baskets of lettuce regularly and enjoyed all the different colors of that as well.


Purple and red beans, summer squash, and more carrots, which of course I grow in all colors too, were harvested.



Overall the beds were looking mature, filled out, and on the downhill slope now.



I started pulling beets like the golden ones.



Picked more baskets of beans.



Weighed things with this cool antique scales that was once my grandparents.


More peas, beans, squash, carrots, beets, kholrabi, and the first few potatoes.



Now even more of the foliage was dying back.



Though there were a few weeks where I didn't use them, the frost covers still came into play most of the summer to keep the more tender things like beans and squash from freezing.


But then on September 8th we got several inches of very heavy crushing wet snow. That put an end to the potatoes which were close to dead anyway. And the beans and squash. Late the night before that happened, I picked every last squash large or small before they turned into mush. And the next morning picked and promptly cooked and ate the remaining beans off their now dead plants.




Everything else I grow though can handle the cold and snow and continued to thrive. Cabbage is a truly tough plant. The morning I picked the heads below they were all covered in ice.


Knowing even colder weather was on the way, I continued to harvest, eat, and preserve everything I cold. 


Picking the onions which were the best I've ever grown with a couple truly huge ones in there. At least for my climate.



Once almost everything above ground is harvested, I stop keeping the fence up so those deer come on in and help trim back everything. Like munching off the tough outer cabbage leave that are left after I cut the heads. Which is just fine with me. 



I dug, which is not really a good term since my soil is so soft that I just go through it with my hands, all the potatoes. The German Butterballs seemed to produce really well. This was the first year I've grown them, but the reds and golds have always been reliable for me. The blues were another first try on this scale for me. They actually produced the highest volume per plant. But seemed to have a severe case of potato scab.



I've actually never seen any this bad before. On almost every potato the skin was scabbed so badly that they were cracked down into the flesh. I would say they were the biggest crop problem I had this year. I will be doing some research into how to help prevent this in the future, but also may not plant the blues again since they seem much more susceptible than the other varieties. Though that is a bummer since they were also the heaviest producer. All four kinds were growing in the same soil, in the same two beds, and right beside and touching each other. They were all still edible, but with that much damage to their skin, I knew I would be eating these first as they were not likely to store well. 



With only a handful of the root crops like carrots and beets still in the ground, the deer and sometimes elk and moose were coming and going freely through the clearing. Every leaf and stalk they didn't munch went into the compost pile. Below is the view literally from my pillow on my bed in the loft. Where I can open my eyes and look out the window over the garden and anything else that's in the clearing without even needing to lift my head.



Another snow blanked everything for a bit before dissolving yet again. 


But the nights were now all well below freezing and the ground was starting to get hard so I pulled all the rest of the carrots and beets.



Now everything is long frozen, under snow, and the temps haven't been above freezing for more than a handful of hours in the past 7 weeks or so. But I am still enjoying the results of the garden. Eating carrots and beets that have been in the fridge since I lack a root cellar. Eating the potatoes, starting with the blue ones that won't keep as well. And enjoying everything else that I fermented like sauerkraut, canned like Danish Christmas cabbage, pickled carrots and beets, and so on.


All total the garden, and I am talking just the veggie garden here, not my herb and flower areas, berry bushes, or any wild foraged or hunted foods, (I will probably do a separate post on some of those things.) produced 535 pounds of food. Congrats to Melissa Peltier who had the closest guess a couple days ago on MeWe! That breaks down like this if you're curious. Some foods are obviously much heavier than others. And some I simply grow and use more of than others. I rounded to the nearest pound so this is not measuring every single ounce.

Rhubarb - 6 pounds
Asparagus - 2 pounds
Strawberries - 2 pounds
Garlic - 9 pounds 
Garlic Scapes - 2 pounds
Summer Squashes - 6 pounds
Broccoli - 10 pounds
Kohlrabi - 1 pound
Sugar Snap Peas - 6 pounds
Hull Peas - 11 pounds
Kale - 7 pounds
Chard - 4 pounds
Lettuces - 14 pounds
Horseradish - 1 pound
Carrots - 36 pounds
Beets - 20 pounds
Beet Greens - 3 pounds
Onions - 47 pounds
Green Beans - 4 pounds
Cabbage - 146 pounds
Potatoes - 199 pounds

535 pounds of produce total.

My garden beds total just over 600 square feet of actual bed space. Not counting pathways space etc. That's hundreds of pounds of fresh nutritious food that I was able to enjoy right from the garden with no need to go to a grocery store. All the things that I can coax to grow in my cold area. In the same amount of bed space, if you are in a warmer area, you could easily grow several times this volume! As you could probably grow everything I grow twice, in the spring and again in the fall. And then a whole lot more warm season crops through the summer. Or even grow what I did here, in your winter! As many of you live in places where your winter is about the same temp as my summer. ☺ I'm already looking forward to planting again once the snow recedes in the spring, but in the mean time, I am very satisfied with the food my garden gave back to me this year.




64 comments:

  1. Wow! That is an amazing amount of beautiful produce. Doris

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    1. Thanks! It was indeed a good garden year.

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    2. Ariel, you are an inspiration in how you set your goals and then achieve them.
      Wishing you a very Happy & Healthy Holiday Season!

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  2. Incredible and down right yummo!

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    1. Fresh from your own garden is always the best!

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  3. Wow, basically 300 lbs of potatoes, cabbage, and onions.....the staples. The rest is seasoning and side dishes. You will not starve this winter. You've inspired me to increase my gardens size next year.

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    1. It was a good harvest. Best wishes with everything you grow!

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  4. I was close, I was guessing 500 lbs.

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  5. well done. beautiful garden. didn't know you had room in fy nyth for all that produce, even if it is canned. kudos to you.

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    1. Well I do eat things all through the summer. So that whole total is never going in my house all at the same time. But late fall it does get pretty full for a little bit! :)

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  6. I was going to guess 200 lbs for you. Some of my estimates for my garden are 150# potatoes, 150# winter squash (Red Kuri, North Georgia Candy Roaster, Starry Night, Tetsukabuto, Marina di Chioggia, 60# tomatoes, 2 gal Sorghum syrup (12#), 30# Ambrosia sweet corn, 100# apples, 30# onions, and a few pounds of asparagus, strawberries, beets, cabbage, cucumbers, garlic, lettuce, and I almost forgot, 30# of muskmelons, and 150# of watermelons (including the seedless ones). (My garden is in Southeast Montana). Shucks, forgot the 40# of grapes for juice and 2 cups of blueberries.

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  7. You had a beautiful garden! Looks like a lot of hard work. Lots of produce to keep you going all winter. Enjoy!

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  8. It just goes to show, with education, no one needs to starve. I wish people in apartments were allowed to grow food on the common property. It would build community, save money and give some control to people who feel helpless with the economy right now. Thank you for sharing. I love reading your posts. Kim from Kamloops, BC

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    1. I am glad to see someone else from Kamloops on this site

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    2. Indeed. I think everyone should have an opportunity to grow something. And you're welcome!

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  9. Wow! Your garden is absolutely amazing,i was guessing around 450 lbs. I garden as well but in a much warmer climate (southern ontario canada) and my garden never comes close to looking like yours.You are an amazing lady! Take care and stay safe.

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  10. I have seen a lot of 'groceries' come out of your gardens over the years but I have to say, this looks to have been your 'bumper' crop thus far. Impressive amounts of spuds and cabbages---both my faves---and all the rest for incredible salads, etc. Well done, Ariel---and, of course, Burley, the Garden Guard pup! Terry

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  11. That's a good amount of food, for such short summer.Doug

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  12. My guess was way over. I was assuming you would get over a pound per square foot.

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    1. I guess maybe I could get there if I planted all heavy things. But the leafy stuff just doesn't add that much weight to the total.

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  13. How do you store your cabbages through the winter, or do you have to process all of it?

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    1. I eat some through late summer and fall. Then store some in the fridge till I eat them since I don't have a root cellar. And also make things like sauerkraut and Danish Christmas cabbage that can store indefinitely.

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  14. That does it, Ariel, you win the High Altitude Garden Production award of the year! Your report is so inspiring. I don't know how you found the time to process all that food, eat some and preserve the rest, but you did! I'm still a bit puzzled about how you kept the gophers out. We used the cement blocks to outline a raised bed and the little buggers burrowed right under it. Thanks again for showing what can be produced in just 600 square feet at high altitude.

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    1. I'd also like to know where Ariel puts the hardware cloth - whether it's around the perimeter of the garden, dug down deep, or underneath each bed. I never saw a video shoeing that, though it may exist.

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    2. Aww thanks! :) See the details of how I put these beds together in this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T1Dhosptfw . I can see where they have tried to go under for sure so if that cloth was not creating a base the whole way under the bed, I am sure they would have gotten in.

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  15. Have to tell you Ariel I have never seen a better harvest and I have seen quite a few, and all grown 6000 feet plus up the side of a mountain,you sure got farming blood from somewhere flowing through those veins of yours.Pity you do not have a root cellar, but you seem to manage o.k. with your preserving and pickling, you always remind me of my Mother with her jars, and she also had a big press full of various jams and jellies, crab apple, red currant and so forth. Had twenty pounds of rhubarb ginger jam this year my self, put rind and juice of five lemons in it and let it marinade with the sugar over night and boiled it next morning, makes a big difference I find, love the stuff although I give most of it away as I do with a lot of my produce, Like you I am always looking forward to next year, Regards.

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    1. Aww thanks. Some day I do hope to have a root cellar. That's a great rhubarb harveset. Best wishes with everything you grow!

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  16. It is no only the quantity but the quality of the food which is important

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    1. Indeed. And that is why it's well worth it to grow you own even if it is only a very small amount.

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  17. Well it sure is clear, why you still look 23 yrs old!

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    1. Well thanks. That was quite a few years ago now. :)

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  18. Wow, that's amazing! Please let us know how you'll be preserving and storing your bounty.

    Claudia

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    1. I eat the vast majority fresh, but do preserve everything that I can get enough of. Check out this playlist of the videos I've done on preserving various foods. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLahYrM1qHHGN9iLse_jA7kmeeRmUuNi8D

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  19. I was guessing 500 lbs too - that's a monumental amount! How do you store stuff without a root cellar? I highly recommend leaving in some carrots. Cover them with straw bales, and a tarp to be able to lift/shovel the snow off. I harvested in mid-January (in Eastern Ontario, Canada where winters get probably at least as cold as yours) the year I did this and I have never eaten such juicy, sweet carrots!

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    1. Very close! I eat the vast majority fresh, but do preserve everything that I can get enough of. Check out this playlist of the videos I've done on preserving various foods. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLahYrM1qHHGN9iLse_jA7kmeeRmUuNi8D I do leave carrots in the ground until it starts to get too hard to be able to get anything out. We usually get weeks of temps in the -30F/-34C range by January. Right now it's been -14F/-25C every night for almost 8 weeks now with the mid day highs only getting up to about 9F/-12C briefly. And with snow well over my head, even if the ground didn't freeze solid five feet down, just moving all that snow to get to a carrot would be a massive amount of work here. :) My carrots are super sweet though, probably because I do get freezes all summer long.

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  20. What a magnificent harvest! I love the variety of things you grow. We should all grow some food wherever we are.
    I live in a senior complex that has a community garden for those interested in growing veggies.
    I have been growing veggies for several years now and look forward to growing season next year. Mount Shasta,
    where I live is high desert and our growing season is short but we all do pretty well. You are a great inspiration to all gardeners!

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    1. That's wonderful that you have space to grow there. Best wishes with everything you plant!

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  21. Wow how beautiful and lovey xxx

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  22. SO inspiring Ariel. Question, you produce so much, I'm curious if you end up with leftovers?Given that you don't have lots of storage space for jars of preserves (or 'canned' as you Americans say!) (And which I've always found odd because you're not actually using cans you're using jars :-) ) So I'm just interested, do you have to much leftover excess or do you end up composting some of it or do you sell in a farmers market etc? I'm so curious. It's such a wonderful breakdown here of everything you produce it's really inspiring me, thank you :-) Gemma

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    1. I eat everything and could use more if it was to truly last all year. Lots of it is eaten fresh, and then yes dried, canned (it is a funny term), or fermented with things I can grow enough of to do so.

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  23. only 2 pounds of strawberries? didn't you have a lot of strawberry plants?

    thats a really nice harvest from such a small area! good job

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    1. No I only saved a little corner of the bed space for them. To get many I need several large beds, but I don't have enough space right now for everything I want to be able to grow and other things are more staple foods. Thanks!

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  24. Aírelo you are awe inspiring. That is a lot of food to put up by yourself. My gut reaction to your question was 1000 lbs as I know your garden is huge, then I thought that was a bit high. You did amazing. Tha is almost 1 pound per sq ft of garden space. Awesome!

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  25. Wow...That amount is awesome!!!! Congrats!!

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  26. Wow great harvest , do you have a rootcellar to preserve your precious harvest ? You are a great inspiration

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  27. Your skills at gardening in your climate always blow my mind! What an amazing garden, so lush and beautiful. Even more amazing was the harvest, that is a great harvest Ariel!!! Merry Christmas to you and Burley! Hugs, Brenda

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  28. Where do you get your seeds and which brand? Are they organic. Also what do you use for fertilizer. It’s a magnificent garden!

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  29. Love your blog. Interesting how you golfer proofed your raised beds. I have issues with moles and voles. It will be a lot of work, but I think I will try your idea.

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