The Urban Gardener – Late September

Our vegetable garden is down to mostly flowers, herbs and kale. We will probably get tomatoes for another 2-3 weeks and maybe one last picking of green beans. In 3-4 weeks the garden will be put to rest until next year.

At least a weeks worth of green beans picked yesterday along with a bunch of tomatoes (most not pictured here).

We got around eight butternut squash this year. With how big they are they’ll last us through winter.

Ultimately we got about 25 meals of green beans, and 17 pints of pickled green beans. With tomatoes we had at least 30 salads, dozens of sliced tomatoes with lunches and dinners and a bunch of BLTs. We also have about 20 quarts of canned tomato sauce. With our basil we got lots of fresh basil for salads, used with sliced tomatoes and 10 small 1/4-cup units of frozen pesto. Dried herbs (parsley, thyme, dill and rosemary) for winter use, and fresh herbs for soups and salads. A summers worth of zucchini along with canned zucchini pickles. Kale all summer and we will get more into winter.

As far as I’m concerned the 126 heads of garlic all paid for this.

So, is the garden worth the effort and cost? Yes!

Green beans would have cost about $45.

Tomatoes would have cost about $65.

Basil would have cost about $25.

Garlic would have cost about $150.

Herbs (dill, thyme, rosemary) would have cost about $50.

Squash (zucchini and butternut) would have cost about $50.

Kale would have cost about $50.

We probably spent $150 for plants, composted cow manure, gas for canning (we have a gas stove). Thus we came out $285 ahead.

But aside from the money there was the time that we spent outside, and knowing that all of this is pesticide free, without added fertilizer and organic.

And all of this from an urban backyard garden that is approximately 200 square feet.

More later…