Tomato Harvest Summary

So, the week of September 9th we harvested 150 tomatoes.  I turned the previous week's harvest into 3 quarts of sauce, which made for nearly 3 GALLONS this year.

The following week we harvested 100 more.

And then 87 the next, which saw the end of the growing season.  I ended up turning about half into more sauce.

Four plants.  Four freaking roma tomato plants.  685 tomatoes.  That roughly 171 lbs of tomatoes (figuring 4oz per tomato).  We have over 5 gallons of sauce in the freezer.

I am willing to sell our garden dirt to the highest bidder.  Just sayin'.

More veggies. Help me.

So, we had so much produce on hand that I had to just turn the tomatoes straight into sauce.

I mean, we love tomatoes, but there's no way we could eat over 100 in a week.  And we would have had to.

Because here's what we harvested this week.

That's my kitchen sink full to the top.  236 tomatoes (yes, I counted).  In one week. 

Send help.

August Harvests

So, this year we scaled back. Our freezer is still fairly full from the previous year's harvest. So we only planted 4 tomato plants, 2 tomatillo plants, 2 pepper plants, 2 cucumber plants, 1 jalapeno plant, 1 squash plant, 1 zucchini plant and 1 eggplant plant.

But we still wanted fresh veggies, right?  And maybe to put away some.

Didn't help. Here's the haul from the 16th:

And then from today:

This week's harvest includes 86 tomatoes, 52 jalapeños, 20 tomatillos. Total produce on hand: 112 tomatoes, 120 jalapeños (let me reiterate: ONE plant), 20 tomatillos, 8 peppers, 9 cukes, 5 squash, 2 zukes, 2 eggplant.

We're so screwed.

Baby robins

We have a nest of baby robins in our river birch clump.

Salvia, birds, happy dogs and trees

The perennial dwarf salvia we planted in our planter has really flourished

The finches really love it, too.

Taking flight

Happy dogs lounging

The maple tree

The linden

My roses

So, in 2009 I posted about these surprising roses in our fireplace bed.

In 2010 we revamped the bed, which included making those roses a focal piece.

Well.  Look at them now!

Spring Garden Prep

Someone's helping Dad get ready for the spring

April yard photos

Daffodils!

Organic lawncare FTW!



Sore

When you live in Wisconsin, the following scenario is pretty typical.

You spend 6+ months cooped up in the house, dealing with snow and cold.  Spring rolls around and you have to start mowing the lawn, which makes for a nice way to get outside, even though you might be wrapped up in a winter jacket yet.

Then the first really nice day comes.  The weather forecast reads sunny and 80s.  You initially put on jeans and a t-shirt, not trusting the weather report, and head outside... only to head back in to change into shorts and a tank top.

You then spend the entire day outside, thoroughly energized by the lovely weather.  You weed, you mow, you till, you fertilize, you plant.  At the end of the day you grill and chill.

The next morning you groan.  If you were smart, you aren't sunburned.  But you're still awfully sore.

Resurrection

It has been a while since I blogged here.  There's a reason.

Meet G.  In the last post in this blog I was 5 months pregnant.  Shortly thereafter, I found the combination of 3rd trimester pregnancy and keeping up with the mammoth garden and yardwork a bit much.  Oh, I could keep up - barely - but at the end of the day I was generally too tired to write about it.

G is about 6 months now.  So we're past the chronic sleep deprivation phase and can re-visit a few things that have lagged behind.

We've had a positively abysmal spring.  It has been since late January that we've had one full weekend of sun.  And it's only this past weekend that it's warmed up enough to plant things.

We've scaled back this year, especially compared to last year.  We've planting only two beds, containing tomatoes, red and white onions, shallots, eggplant, peppers, jalapenos, carrots, beans, peas, lettuce, spinach, squash, zucchini, cucumbers.  We'll add some herbs, garlic and annuals in a week or so.  We wanted to keep it a bit simple.  Mr. Trouble looks like he's going to be an early crawler, so I don't expect we'll have much peace once he gets going.

In other news, we've been soliciting bids to come up with a master plan for the back yard.  The idea being that, once we have an overall plan, we can implement sections of it as time and budget allow.  Stay tuned for that!

More veggies harvested & corn progress

Harvest - 7/25

Peas

Squash, Zucchini and Cucumbers

Peppers, Jalapeños, Tomatoes and Eggplant

Minestrone

Harvest - 8/1

Eggplant, Peppers, Poblanos, Jalapeños, Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Beans

(not pictured: garlic, onions, shell beans)

Also, back on July 10th, the corn was just over my head:

Here it is today:

And that's The Spouse at 6'5"