Gardening - The (Mostly) Final Report

My garden has wound-down to just a few tomato plants slowly producing green or pale-pink tomatoes.  Given that, I thought it was time to add-up the totals and see just how many pounds of food I was able to grow for my first year.  Here's a brief summary of the items that did well:

• San Marzano Tomatoes - 94 tomatoes weighing in at 34.77 pounds
• Early Girl Tomatoes - 53 tomatoes weighing in at 12.33 pounds
• Brandywine Tomatoes - 13 tomatoes weighing in at 1.88 pounds
• Armenian Cukes - 5 cukes weighing in at 5.71 pounds
• Acorn Squash - 6 squash weighing in at 6.92 pounds
• Various peppers, green beans, peas, etc. in negligible amounts
• Several pounds of green tomatoes still coming off the vines

As of today, my total production is: 76.5 pounds!

For my first year doing "real gardening," I'm pretty happy with these numbers.  I was able to see what works and what doesn't, where my thumb is green and where it is brown, where to best put the garden next year, and overall, I had a lot of fun and satisfaction doing it.

I've also managed to take 76.5 pounds of food out of my grocery bill, even though it may not feel like it and even though there were a lot of startup costs that probably put me at a negative financial savings.  Nonetheless, there's something satisfying about producing your own food and knowing all the hard work that went into it.

I'm also happy that I was able to preserve a lot of this food and much of the food I've purchased from local farms.  I have a small bookshelf nearly full of canning jars that will get us through the winter months and make for some great holiday cooking.  I've been counting those too and I'll let you know what the output is soon.