Year End Totals

Inspired a post on another blog I decided to participate in a harvest challenge. I found out about it last year, mid year, but that's the story of my life, a day late and a dollar short, but wanted to see just how much I could grow on my own. It was exciting and tedious at the same time. I liked seeing the totals grow, but was not as excited about having to weigh EVERYTHING. (My scale only holds about 4lbs at a time...) Anyway, in 2008, after I found out about the challenge I started weighing what I produced and at the end of the year I had a little over 503 pounds and 706 eggs. When 2009 started I was ready to hit the ground running and was SO excited about the challenge little did I know what was in store for me. I even went as far as starting most of the plants from seed (read GEEK here) I worked really hard and just knew that our garden would be bountiful. Little did I know it would rain all spring and most of the summer, and we wont even go there with the blight, (thank you big box stores! grrrrr) Needless to say our garden was pathetic at best, out of about 30ish tomato plants we got roughly 14 lbs of fruit, most of which had to be thrown away due to the blight. We did however have out goat deliver twins and with them came a lot of milk, and where there is milk there is cheese and butter. I did not include the cheese or butter I made in my year end total because I figured it would be like counting it twice... So here it is, my year end total, it includes all the food that we bartered for, grew ourselves or were given from surplus from another gardener etc. Our total food weight is..... drum roll please............

1592 pounds and 2561 eggs!

When you consider that just over 1300 lbs of that is milk weight the total really stinks. I'll admit I'm happy that I was able to grow any of my own food, but sadly disappointed with the outcome as far as food weight. Had we not had SO much rain I know the total would be way higher. I grew zucchini and only harvested 6/7 squash off 3 plants!! anybody who's ever grown zucchini knows that that is the only time of year people lock their doors for fear someone might stuff excess zucchini in their car or on the kitchen table! It grows like crazy! I'm not giving up though, I'm going to try again next year but won't take part in the challenge, (I'm taking a year or more off from weighing everything...humm wonder what I'll do with the free time....actually have a life!) I get immense satisfaction in knowing that the organic seeds I plant and tend grow into food I can feel good about eating and serving my family and no amount of rain will deter me from that!

Tomato, mozzarella and basil all grown or made here at From the Country Farm!! It was as delicious as it looks!