Mr Yan Veg harvest 2012

[mr_yan]

Last year I recorded both what I spent on my garden and the amount I harvested from it - or at least the part that made it inside so grape tomatoes and pea pods were greatly under recorded. Last year I harvested over 112 pounds of food which cost $1.77 a pound. I did have to spend a lot that year on new containers and potting mix materials.

This year I am doing the same recording.

I do not count my time in the cost as I would be spending time in the garden anyway.

I expected for my harvest to be down this year. The two big reasons for a smaller harvest is the drought and I got a late start and lost many early seedlings because I was putting in a new kitchen. However I just looked at the numbers and I am 2100 grams ahead of where I was last year.

My gardens tend to be late producers with high populations of tomatoes, winter squash, peppers, and potatoes.

As of 29 July I have harvested 4733 grams (aka 10.4 pounds for you imperialists) from my garden which is a little over 100 square feet. This brings my cost per pound to $7.28.

 

[Randy]

Time would be a tough thing to evaluate anyway as it is recreational even though it is work. It's also hard to put a price on taste or freshness.

 

[RonsGarden]

If it is a labor of love then it is considered priceless!

 

[Crabbergirl]

Aside from the labor of love, think of the quality of the produce you grow has to factor in. For me it is no pesticides, no chemicals and fresh from garden to table and the exercise I get too. I don't seem to enjoy going to the market as much as I do the garden so you have to count entertainment and education in your cost. I think I will join you in "trying" to keep track, I tend to get so excited I just forget the technical stuff.

this is a good starting point for me as most of the garden has stopped producing due to the heat.

 

[Crabbergirl]

I think it would be fun to see the rate of production for each crop.
Just one gardeners thought

 

[mr_yan]

How geeked out do you want to get?

I have a spread sheet from last year where I logged the weight of each crop with the date harvested. This inventory was itemized by keyword such as "cherokee purple" "bell pepper" "green beans". I then wrote a few cells such that they dynamically displayed the total harvest weight from the garden in grams and calculated the cost per pound dynamically from the garden budget.

But wait there's more...

I also used the database lookup functions so I could quickly tally the harvest weight by date, keyword, or combinations of keywords.

On another note I will continue to update this thread with my harvest for the season.

 

[Crabbergirl]

Very cool. You have given me some ideas. Hmmm now if I can just get started planting for fall.
I will start tracking my expenses with my next purchase.

 

[Wombat]

I consider myself to be a part timer when it comes to my veggie garden. The only time I've ever wondered about the cost of production( ie waste of my valuable time ) is when I get an occasional low yielding crop that should have been high yield I don't depend on it for my livelihood, therefore it's mostly a labour of love and knowing where your fruit and veggies come from that is my aim. After a few years you get to know your climate, your soil and from past experience are able to grow crops that suit your local conditions. I save my seed, use my own compost and grow green manure crops both to replenish nitrogen in the soil and as a fumigant to deter pests. I also use rainwater from my large tank to irrigate. I suppose I'm pretty cost effective from that perspective but labour costs are a given as far as I'm concerned.

 

[mr_yan]

Wombat, I'm at about the same level as you except for the green manure use. I try to grow edible stuff right up until the snow flies - or past at times - and start again as soon as the top few inches are thawed.

I'm also applying some of the same recording methods to the garden as I do in my engineering electronics lab at work. Last year I wanted to know what crops were worth doing and what were a waste of time in an objective manner.

This year is turning out to be the year of the cucumber. I pulled 1498 grams of cucumbers last night.

I just went out and bought some more seeds from the clearance rack at a big box store - snow peas (couldn't remember if I saved enough), basil seeds, and fordhook type chard.

I harvested a container of Russian banana fingerling potatoes that had died back and got nothing, not even a microtuber. I suspect the container was too warm to set tubers but I know it had enough water.

As of 8/3/12 I've harvested 6231 grams of produce at a cost of $6 a pound

 

[Wombat]

Mr y I've been doing the green manure thing for about 10 years now and I swap the crops each year. It seems to work well for me. I'm also fortunate enough with my climate to grow veggies right through the year just changing them over to suit the temps. I also kept a diary for the first few years listing crop successes and failures and the type of seed that failed and why. Now it's all stored in my head and knowing what and when to grow a particular crop is 2nd nature to me. I also still trial heirloom seeds from veggies that have all but disappeared from the shelves as they worked well in the past so why not now.

 

[mr_yan]

So Wombat, sounds like I'm following in your footsteps just a few years behind. The vast majority of my garden is either raised beds or medium to large containers. I do use mulches extensively but have not figured out how to use green manures. I try to get as much food out of the garden as possible - now with a fourth family member I'll be pushing harder. I have a lot of trellis where I grow up.

As for local climate we tend to have cold winters without much snow, hot(ish) summers, and very little spring or fall weather between them. Even though I mainly use the SI system when working all my climate stats are imperial, at least off the top of my head. Typically summers are highs in the low 80's F with a few days above 100 each year, winters are all below freezing with a week or so continuous below 0 F with nightly lows around -20 F. First light frost usually in mid September, first freeze mid October, last frost date in early / mid May. Typical year we get about 35 inches of liquid precip. Not much of the precip for the year is in the form of snow - if we get 75 inches of snow a season people start talking new record.

I'm not opposed to green manures but just don't know of a way to use them. Any suggestions?

 

[Wombat]

mr yan these links will provide a lot of the info you're seeking. I've found similar sites, more suited to my climate, extremely useful when I was learning about cover crops. My beds are also raised ones as I have clay soil which has taken a lot of work over the years using sand, compost and gypsum in conjunction with known clay breaking plants to make my beds into a friable healthy soil. The things you've been talking about take me back quite a few years, it's all part of the learning curve for most gardeners. In a few weeks I'll be incorporating ing my mustard greens back into the soil


http://www.mccc.msu.edu/
http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/cover-crop-basics
http://www.hort.cornell.edu/bjorkman/lab/covercrops/

 

[mr_yan]

In a few weeks I'll be incorporating ing my mustard greens back into the soil

Ha, in a few weeks I'll be incorporating my mustard greens into my diet. Sauteed with some garlic and a splash of red wine vinegar.

Thanks for the links. I like how the first one is from Michigan State - I'm a 6 hour drive from there and grew up in then ran away from that state.

 

[Crabbergirl]

I started an excel spread sheet for my garden since I bought seeds for fall last week. And I planted some this past weekend.
I have cost per crop for seeds, I divide any additonal cost by the number of crops it is used on ( don't buy much but sometimes organic pest control) I will have harvest total per crop and an average over all. I think I would like to add some information about the weather also, maybe just the extremes to compare with the crop productions. Not sure about that one yet.

 

[mr_yan]

I have a few tabs on my sheet:

notes - one column for dates, one with keyword (weather, planted, transplanted, etc.), and one field to just fill that in. I generally don't use this tab

Harvest - date, crop (if tracking), weight - plus my dynamic fields for costs and totals

layout - used in the winter to plan where things go -great for raised beds, square foot gardens, and containers

 

[Crabbergirl]

Hmmm, I may rethink my tabs.
I like the lay out, I might add that as well. A good way to go if you need to rotate crops.

I wanted to give you and update on my experience with the "Back to Eden" method.
One very positive and considerable advantage is that by adding the several inches of mulch , I have now created a raised bed with fall to the outer edges. Thus draining a lot of our excessive rains. While the water is no longer standing , the ground below the mulch does still hold and excess of water causing roots to be saturated and then "boiled" as the sun comes out. But , I think I can over come this. At the end of my growing season, Jan if the weather is not too mild, I will actually go ahead and cultivate the top layer of mulch into the soil, keeping it watered well and planting a green manure crop. Also covering it with new mulch first. the first layer has degraded quickly , much quicker than I expected.So I believe if I do not apply anymore mulch this year it will be OK to turn in . This should help with drainage and keeping the water away from the roots to excess. Then I will begin the reapplication of mulch in about Feb or March.
I know that hey did not turn in the big chunks but this has gotten to the crumbly stage so it might work out.

 

[mr_yan]

Won't turning the big chunks in also start to rob the soil of nitrogen? You notice he never turned anything once the compost was down and the mulch was over it.

I really need to build up some of my raised beds. I hope to spread at least a cubic yard of shredded leafs this fall (I collect from my neighbors before the leafs are hauled off). over three or four of my raised beds.

I have an area I ripped rhubarb out of which gets five or six hours of afternoon sun a day. It is shaded until 2 or 3 in the afternoon around June and July. Do you think this will be enough sun to grow some greens in? Thinking kale, chards, mustard, turnip, etc.

 

[Wombat]

I also watched Back to Eden and it's a necessity here for me to mulch as 95% of our rain comes in summer. I've used sugarcane mulch for many years and it keeps the bed intact during the heaviest of downpours, it also breaks down beautifully. One thing I adopted about 15 few years is not turning over the soil so deeply. Now I just cultivate the first 4" and incorporate my compost and ground mineral rock into that and let it sit for about 2 weeks. I then uncover the mulch and rake the surface lightly and it's ready to be planted. It's much easier on the back too!

 

[mr_yan]

Here's another update:

As of 8/12 I've harvested 9303 grams at a garden produce price of $4.02 a pound.

The peaches were harvested today - just over 1300 grams of peaches from my tree. This was the first year it produced.

I have yet to harvest a tomato for the season though.

 

[Crabbergirl]

You are right. He did say tilling in the big chunks robber the soil, however mine has composted down really will and my though was, if I can cultivate that into the soil below maybe it won't hold as much water. Much like John decribed. My second crop on tomatoes that just recovered from TS Debby are bearing fruit but with the daily rains they are again wilting. The ground is just holding too much water. I though turning in the composted materials might help. The soil smell sour from just holding all that water. What do you think? Leave it as is or turn in the "fine" composted material and add more on top. Either way I will be bringing in more this next weekend. All my beds need re mulched.