Thursday, November 22, 2007

2007 Harvest Summary

Thanksgiving is a great time to review the year's harvest totals and give thanks for the blessings from our garden.

As of Nov 22, most of the 2007 harvest is over (we still have a few carrots remaining). We didn't set very many records this year, but we had a right-sized harvest. We intentionally cut back on some veggies to better match our consumption. We also had some trouble with squash bugs that totally destroyed our winter squash & pumpkins this year. While the peppers did well, we had some early losses due to high winds and had to replant some varieties from the nursery.
  • We set new records this year for production of garlic and peppers, but with the busy fall football season, we totally missed the garlic planting time and won't have any next year.

This year's harvest totals:

  • Basil 0.9 lbs
  • Cabbage 3.2 lbs
  • Carrots 33.3 lbs (so far)
  • Cucumber 15.2 lbs
  • Garlic 8.1 lbs (new record)
  • Green Beans 9.6 lbs
  • Honey 34.2 lbs
  • Lettuce & Salad Greens 9.3 lbs
  • Onions 20.2 lbs
  • Peppers 87.1 lbs (new record)
  • Rhubarb 11.9 lbs
  • Snow Peas 1.7 lbs
  • Summer Squash 49.5 lbs
  • Tomatoes 171.4 lbs
2007 Climate Summary:
This summer's growing season was longer than usual. We had our last frost of spring on May 8th and our first frost of the fall on October 8th giving us a very long 153 days of growing season. Our summer rainfall was also very close to normal with 7.63" from April through October with June being our driest month with only 0.27" of rainfall this year. July was only slightly more, so the mid-summer required a lot of extra watering this year. Average temps were generally lower through July this year too, with no days above 100 degrees. August through October was slightly warmer than normal, helping to achieve the late frost.