by Mark Sandeen
It would be hard to imagine better days for working in the garden than we’ve had the last couple of Saturdays. Cool, crisp air – Blue skies – and lots of friendly people.
I thought you might be interested in how we are doing this year compared to last year at this time. We had a wonderful growing season last year – and the garden got off to a great start last year. But because of the late snow, just about everything at the garden has been delayed a bit this year.
Our first work day last year was March 14th. We started a week later this year on March 22nd. The snow and cold weather delayed our first harvest by almost three weeks.
We brought our first asparagus and rhubarb harvest to the food pantry on April 17th last year.
We brought our first asparagus and rhubarb harvest to the food pantry on May 7th – almost three weeks later than last year. The cold also affected the amount of our asparagus – we had 13 pounds last year and only 9 pounds this year.
But our harvest at the garden seems to be catching up to last year fabulous numbers – after that slow start.
We’ve harvested 176 pounds of produce so far this year – compared to 204 pounds of produce this time last year.
We had almost 40 pounds of wonderful produce today, so it looks like we are running a little less than one week behind our harvest numbers from last year at this time.
Our top three items so far this year are bok choy, potatoes, and lettuce, weighing in at 45 lbs., 32 lbs., and 31 lbs. Those three items made up a little more than 60% of all the produce we brought to the food pantry so far this year.
Last year at this time we had delivered 78 lbs. of lettuce, 30 lbs. of zucchini and 7 lbs. of potatoes.
So far this year we’ve delivered asparagus, basil, beets, bok choy, broccoli, cabbage, cilantro, dill, garlic, lettuce, mint, onions, parsley, potatoes, raspberries, radishes, peas, rhubarb, scallions, spinach, squash, strawberries, sugar snap peas, swiss chard, tarragon, thyme and zucchini.
We’ve had a lot less rain this year – 14.6 inches from March 1 to July 16, compared to 21.6 inches last year over the same period.
To be fair, a lot of the rain last year came in those two huge storms in March. We had 13.6 inches of rain in March alone.
From April 1, 2010 to July 16, 2010 – we only had 8 inches of rain.
This year we’ve had 50% more rain during the same period – with 12.3 inches from April 1, 2011 to July 16, 2011.
Any bets on where we’ll end up this year at the end of the growing season?