Less is More: Gardening on a Budget

What We Bought

 

Seeds $35.45

Row cover $12.00

Cover-crop seed $10.00 

Rooting medium $7.55

Seed inoculant $5.49

Plastic pickle barrel $3.00

Hollyhock seedlings $1.25

Total $74.74

 

What We Grew

 

Here's what we harvested on our property:

 

Beans 4 pounds and remainder to seed for 2010

Beets 25 pounds

Cabbages 64 pounds

Carrots 10 pounds

Cherry tomatoes 5 pounds

Corn 10 pounds dry seed, 12 ears fresh

Cucumbers 25 pounds

Daikon 5 pounds

Eggplants 10 pounds

Flowers 1 or 2 bouquets cut every week

Green tomatoes 9 pounds

Horseradish A few leaves for sushi; harvest in 2010

Hot peppers 3 pounds

Kohlrabi 30 pounds

Leeks 20 pounds

Lettuce 10 pounds

Podding radish 1 pound, plus seed

Potatoes 350 pounds

Purple-top turnips 30 pounds

Rhubarb 2 pies

Scallions 1 pound

Soybeans 1 pound as edamame

Spinach 3 pounds

Sunflowers 100 pounds to feed chickens, wild birds

Tomatillos 10 pounds

Winter squash 40 pounds

Total About 796 pounds, plus our CSA share

 

September 30 

Our first frost was 10 days ago. Yet, while harvesting kale and turnips yesterday at our CSA farm--which has provided a rich education in larger-scale organic farming techniques, great exercise, stimulating conversation, and hundreds of pounds of veggies since May--we learned that the gorgeous green tomatoes in their hoop house must make way for winter greens. I requested permission to glean, and in one hour this morning we picked several hundred pounds of fruit. More than half went to a program that provides CSA memberships for low-income families, augmented with cooking and nutrition classes. They'll organize a giveaway and class with a local chef. I'll trade and share what we kept, stock the pantry, and ripen some in newspaper for November salads. I've heard rumors of a defunct gleaners' network in the area; I plan to learn more. 

 

November 4 

We still have potatoes to dig and leeks we'll harvest into the New Year. The pantry, freezer, and root cellar promise good eating throughout the winter, and we haven't paid cash for produce since early May. Yet we still have much to learn. In September, we forgot to freeze our collected vetch seeds to kill bugs. Instead of a free winter cover crop, we had a startling October hatching. Our laying hens feasted on several heads of sunflowers, but the challenge of drying and storing 100 seedheads demands winter research. 

 

Even so, our myriad trades and barters have produced a generous harvest while the social connections we've made and the wisdom we've gained will yield for many seasons to come. We've already thrown down the gauntlet for 2010: all the food we can eat and give away from May to November, for less than $25.