*Please click on photos to enlarge*
In the first month of '09, my garden gave to me...
The Arizona container garden and salad garden, January 2009In the second month of '09, my garden gave to me...
In the third month of '09, my garden gave to me...
One last bowl of lettuce and onions from the Arizona garden, and tomato and pepper seedlings to transport north.
And, once we arrived back home, a new beginning for the Washington garden.In the fourth month of '09, my garden gave to me...
My nice, big Washington garden, and its first salad greens, onions, radishes and pansies.In the fifth month of '09, my garden gave to me...
May brought more salad fixings, the first of what was to be a wonderfully long harvest of lovely spinach, and the lush growth of potatoes.In the sixth month of '09, my garden gave to me...
June, my favorite month of the year. The gardens are lush and green, everything is growing well in the perfect weather.
Crops are showing the promise of a large harvest.
And large it is, for the sixth month of gardening!In the seventh month of '09, my garden gave to me...
July gave such a bountiful harvest that it provided much of the food used to prepare our meals....
I was able to serve "garden dinners" most every night.
And it was time to begin preserving the harvest by canning, freezing or drying the excess produce.In the eighth month of '09, my garden gave to me...
Undaunted by the August heat, the garden continued to produce beyond my expectations throughout the eight month of gardening.
The abundant harvest of August meant...
A lot of preserving!In the ninth month of '09, my garden gave to me...
By September I was ready for a bit of vacation from the garden, but that was not to be. My friends, family and neighbors were beginning to shun me, fearful they'd be loaded down with more tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers!
The kitchen work did slow down a bit, as there wasn't as much canning to do. All the peppers were easy to just slice, bag and freeze, and some beans were dried and saved for seed for next year.In the tenth month of '09, my garden gave to me...
Life......
A smaller harvest...
Then death. When death comes to the Washington garden, it's time to head south for the winter.
I potted up some greens to take along to tide me over until I can get the winter garden planted in Arizona. The gardening season has been good to me. I harvested nearly 1100 pounds of produce and canned more than we'll be able to consume in the next twelve months.In the eleventh month of '09, my garden gave to me...
The Arizona garden gives me a few salads, and some tomatoes and flowers to attend to.In the twelfth month of '09, my garden gave to me...
One plate of lettuce, and the hope that spring comes soon.
What an awesome year! Here's to 2010!
ReplyDeleteEven though I read every single update, I'm still awed by your amazing garden abilities! Right down to a plate of lettuce grown in the desert. :)
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas! Hope it's a good one.
Maureen, I'll drink to that!
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Teresa, I'm amazed I got that much this year. The best year I've had since I left that big garden on the hill! I need to send you a photo of the front cactus garden...the one I was so proud of when it had 2-3 little plants and a stone path. You wouldn't believe how much it's grown.
Wow that is a great review of your 2009 garden/harvest. I can't believe one year has gone by already.
ReplyDeleteLiisa, I'm ready for it to be over...I need a rest!
ReplyDeleteGranny, I really like the format of this post - especially with the photos. It truly was a magnificent (but tiring!) year of gardening for you. BTW, how many tomato plants did you have in Washington? I don't want to make the same mistake, and have them running out our ears!
ReplyDeleteI REALLY enjoyed this!! If anyone doubts the power of a garden-they need to see this. Great job on piecing all this together!
ReplyDeleteFantastic, Granny! I't so neat to see all those harvests in one picture like that. It really shows how much you really did grow!!
ReplyDeleteGreat post AG, you really give us all something to aspire to. I love how the colors changed as they year progressed, and then of coarse there was all the canning. I still can't get over how much food you grew!!!
ReplyDeleteMarvelous post!
ReplyDeleteSing with me now....
ReplyDelete"And a partridge in a pear tree!"....
LOL! Great recap of the year AG. An amazing amount of production from the Washington garden. Well done.
EG, I ripped out a lot of the plants early on, as they either weren't performing well or they just didn't have a decent flavor. I think I ended up with a main crop of about a dozen plants, plus a couple of cherry tomatoes. Probably another 3-4 that had good but few tomatoes on them.
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Sue, Ribbit. Kelly, Jain and Kitsap...thanks! It took me four days to publish it, what with this lousy internet connection!
Loved the post Granny. It is truly amazing how much you harvested.
ReplyDeleteA year in the garden, a topic I have been thinking of posting about recently. You really had a bang up year in the garden, your yields were spectacular. I saw a few french melons in there too :-) I hope next year is even better for your garden. We all know my garden has to be better next year after all the blight and cool weather, I hope at least... Nice job on the photos!
ReplyDeleteDaphne, a large part of my harvest poundage was thanks to you...Daphne's pumpkin seeds!
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Dan, I saved the seeds from Petit Gris. I think that will be my only melon next year. I'm actually hoping next year's garden isn't quite as successful as this year ;-) I've proved my point, one can grow a LOT in a small space.
What a fantastic post! I saw right away the other day that I wanted to wait to look at it until I had time to get the "full effect"! Well this morning I read, and have been energized to start plotting out the spring garden! Thanks, Granny! Now I need to go back to your tomato review post to help me with my selections, as I am going to add a few hybrid tomatoes to my heirlooms this year.
ReplyDeleteErin, I've changed my mind a bit on the tomato review. I didn't care for Early Girl when I wrote that blog, as they had a really hard core. However, later in the season they were my best performer and the flavor and texture improved over the earlier ones. As much as I liked the flavor of Better Boy, they didn't give me a very big harvest (but they were in buckets, not in the main garden). I've always had good luck with Celebrity, but they were my biggest failure this year (blight). I had so darned many varieties, it was hard to keep track of which was which!
ReplyDeletewow! It must have taken you quite some time to put all those photos together like that. But it was worth it, it looks so pretty and colorful!
ReplyDeleteThe first time I have been here -great post. But I wondered how you got twelve months out of Washington. Looks like you a great gardener no matter where you are!
ReplyDeletevickie
LOL, Vickie! If you go back and read the captions under the photos, you'll see I'm in Arizona months 1,2, 3 (half), 10 (half), 11 & 12. I wish I could garden the entire 12 months in WA, it's much easier to grow stuff there.
ReplyDeleteGRAN! How did I miss this amazing post????? I'm so ashamed. What a great way to recap your gardening year. These photos are amazing. You'll have to show me how you made these collages one day. Your produce is some of the best I've seen on the internet. One day, I'll have to show me how you grow such perfect carrots. Wait, I already know! Seeds Mats and raised beds!
ReplyDeleteI love that seed propagation chamber or box that you have. Is EG rubbing off on you? :)
Thomas, I use Irfanview as my graphics program, and it has a very easy way to make panorama images. Irfanview is free, and I highly recommend it...I've used it for years, and have it set to open all my photos.
ReplyDeleteI used an old picnic cooler as a seed propagation chamber. I added a small florescent light and some foil to reflect it down from the top. It really made a perfect spot to get the plants growing well. Once I got home, son John made the mini-greenhouse. It's now in the new garden shed, waiting for its spring babies! I think I was a step ahead of EG, but not as fancy ;-)
Wow...this was a great year for you! I can't wait to remember my garden. Right now all my green plants are programmed to my screensaver. Glad to have you back on the internet, AG :)
ReplyDeleteI have this one thing to say: BRAVO!
ReplyDeleteKalena Michele, it's good to be back, but I have so much to catch up on!
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Di, thank you!
Shawn Ann, I just about lost you way up there in the comments! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteAmazing post, amazing harvests, kudos Granny! I hope you're enjoying a much deserved break from the garden and the kitchen.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Michelle. Yes, I'm being really lazy in the kitchen this winter. But I'm fighting the little AZ garden...I think the only thing I can grow down here are onions!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Di. I hope next year is an encore ;-)
ReplyDeleteOh my! I don’t know how I missed this post.
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful recap! I was amazed at your harvests all year, but seeing this review brings it all back. What an awesome year you had!
What a great review. It is amazing to see it all in one post and the collages month-to-month are fabulous. Thanks for all the time you put into it!! Emily in So. TX
ReplyDeleteThank you, Rachel and Emily!
ReplyDeleteThat's GORGEOUS!! You inspire me again, in a different way!
ReplyDeleteNice to see a whole year laid out like that. Do you regret the tomato overdose still?
Stefaneener, I don't regret it, but I don't want to do it again. You watch though, I'll start all kinds of new varieties, and won't be able to give them up....they become my babies! I'm going to try to restrain myself and start two of each, but plant only the strongest one of each.
ReplyDeleteWow! This is my first time visiting your blog, and I'm reading through the posts and commenting on them as I read them, and just ... WOW! I like how you kept track of your harvest, what with weighing it and everything. I think the Dervaes family over at Little Homestead in the City (http://urbanhomestead.org/journal) harvest 6000 lbs of produce a year from their 1/10th of an acre homestead in Pasadena. I just started my first garden this past year, taught myself to can, and got a dehydrator for Christmas. So, I'm going to be challenging myself, with my newfound skills, to beat your record! :) There is no way in the world I'd ever be able to stand that much canning, though. Lol!
ReplyDeleteUSMC Sis, Hello and welcome to my blog! I'll bet you can beat my 1000+ pounds if you put your heart into it. Somebody asked me the other day if that wasn't an awfully lot of hard work to get that much from the garden, and Mr. H told them I hardly worked at it at all. He's right. It's not so much hard work as it is planning and using every square inch of available ground. Even the canning was done just a bit at a time throughout the garden season. Anyway, good luck with your garden in 2010!
ReplyDeleteHi Annie,
ReplyDeleteYou got a more blessings this 2011, you care of nature and everything.
Just like to share with you a beautiful quote...
"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life" - Albert Camus
You can get more quotes about happiness at http://www.quotelandia.com/category/Happiness
Tanya, my 2010 garden wasn't quite as successful as the 2009 garden, but we had some bad weather that put everything a month or two behind.
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