2006 Harvest Summary

As of Oct 1st, most of the 2006 harvest is over. We had a very early freeze this year, which hit us on September 17th. This ended the production more than a month earlier than in recent years. We've also had a severe draught this year, with only 4 inches of rainfall between April 1st and September 30th. The spring was very, very dry with only 1 inch of rain for the critical period between April 1 and June 30. We kept the irrigation going in the garden this year at normal levels, but it doesn't seem to satisfy in the same way as natural rain. We cut the watering of the lawn areas way back to barely maintain life in the lawn and the trees.

One notable difference this year was the addition of the bees. They arrived too late for the spring fruit blossoms and perhaps as a result, or maybe from the draught we had virtually no fruit harvest this year. No apples, no cherries, no blueberries, no strawberries, but our vegetables did well overall with a total production of 801 lbs.

• This year our overall champion for single plant production goes to Colin's pumpkin which produced 112 lbs.
• We set new records this year for production of carrots, cucumbers, garlic, tomatoes, peppers and rhubarb
• And we harvested our first honey!

This year's harvest totals compared to last year:

• Cabbage: 11.2 lbs (new)
• Cantaloupe 10.3 lbs (new)
• Carrots: 74 lbs (up 89%) [updated 11/27/06]
  
• Cucumber: 83 lbs (up more than 2x previous record)
• Garlic: 4.2 lbs (up 24%)
• Green Beans: 15.4 lbs (up 57%)
• Honey: 48.5 lbs (new)
• Mixed Salad Greens: 5.8 lbs (down 49%)
• Onions: 23.4 lbs (up 23%)
• Peppers: 54.4 lbs (up 11%)
• Pumpkins: 121 lbs (down 25%)
• Rhubarb: 23.3 lbs (up more than 2x previous record)
• All Squash: 83.3 lbs (down 48%)
• Tomatoes: 175.7 lbs (up more than 100 lbs!)