I had thought I'd seen the end of the strawberries, but still came away with a handful that were in their prime; a few were even the 2008 size. My tomatoes had also shown signs of growth and my pole beans (above), which I thought I had planted a bit late, were about 6 inches high and undisturbed. Also, my echinacea had begun to bloom.
Of course, I didn't need to be concerned for the plants known to endure day upon day of temperatures that often don't make it past 70 degrees F. As you can see in the photo of the vegetable end of my plot, the remaining heads of lettuce had not bolted, and the broccoli had grown a great deal. Despite the tangled mess my snap peas are in, I still harvested about a half pound.
A few days ago at the Harvest Coop I noticed that snap peas were priced at $4.59 a pound (which seemed kind of high, so I wondered if the weather was negatively impacting the overall harvest). In total, from my yard and MSG plot, I have picked about one pound total, so now I'll calculate the value of my harvest for the past week:Previous benefits total: $75.50
1 pound of snap peas at $4.59/lb.: $4.59
1/2 pint of strawberries at $3.99/pt.: $2.00
2 heads of Romaine lettuce at $2.49/each: $4.98
New benefits total: $87.07
Total costs so far: $167.07
Current balance: $-80.00
The garden has grown so much that it's difficult to see across to the plots on the opposite end. Compare this shot with the beginning of the season in late March, and even these photos from early May.
And to end, here's my latest garden envy photo: someone already has raspberries!
5 comments:
I knew I forgot to do something yesterday at the farmers market. I forgot to look at the price for organic peas. It looks like you are halfway to recouping your costs.
Looks and sounds like everything is going very well. The rain is really starting to get to me, it seems most times I head out it starts raining. Funny thing I didn't even know sugar snap peas existed until I grew them this year.
I have not been weighing them, but we have had snap peas three or four times for dinner; and more recently the snow peas are in. While the spinach is gone, there is still a lot of lettuce--I planted new lettuce every time the previous row was an inch or so high. Everything seems to be doing well in the rain, especially the tomatoes, but my raspberries are very slow in coming. Our neighbor who sells raspberries ($3 a pint) has had enough to start selling over a week ago. But as a garden blog reproduced in the Times today said, you can't really account for the spiritual pleasure of a vegetable garden by adding up the costs or even measuring the gardener's time.
Dan, the great thing about snap peas is that you can eat them raw as well as cooked...a great option for those with kids who'll only eat raw veggies. Sorry to hear that the rain has been bad for you as well. We are heading up to Ontario (near Morrisburg) next week and I was hoping for a little relief...
Daphne, I also forgot to check at our farmer's market. I've seen 4.59 in one store and 4.99 in another (but the latter wasn't domestic.)
Bryan, I need to adopt your approach of not planting all the lettuce at once--we had too many at the same time and we couldn't eat all of it before our backyard crop became bitter.
Morrisburg is way north of me so the weather may be less rainy. I'm close to the southern tip of Ontario. Enjoy your trip!
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