Last year at this time I shared my gratitude for our bounteous harvest. I made a pretty thorough list of what we planted, how it fared, and what we did with it. Looking back, I’m quite impressed.
In other posts throughout the year, I shared 10 reasons to grow a garden and our our favorite cost effective vegetables to grow. Canning, freezing, dehydrating, and eating fresh produce from our garden is one of the ways we keep a low grocery budget.
If last year’s garden is summed up with the word “gratitude,” this year’s garden can be summed up with the word “guilt.”
I’ve been dreading this post because I was feeling like a failure. Like a fraud. That might sound like a ridiculous worry. We tell you the details of our finances, so why am I fretting about telling you about the sad state of our garden? Well, for the sake of keeping it real at Six Figures Under, here’s our 2014 report.
We had good intentions when we planted in the spring. I bought seeds, including a few varieties we had never tried before. Seeing the amazing transformation of a tiny seed to a thriving plant is motivating and inspiring. We planned on making great use of our soon-to-be productive garden.
As the summer wore on, we got busy (and lazy when it came to working out in the sweltering heat). The only time Mr. SixFiguresUnder is around to help in the garden is on Saturday and sometimes Saturdays fill up quickly.
I was generally faithful about watering, so the garden still grew, weeds and all. Where we have been huge slackers lately is harvesting. That’s supposed to be the “fun” part where you reap what you sow, right? Instead, the fruits of our labors are rotting on the vine!
I have been sick for the past few months, so just keeping everyone fed and in clean clothes has been a major chore. I am ashamed at how much food is going to waste in our garden. (We were a little over-zealous in planting tomatoes.) We know that when we bring food in, we have to do something with it, so we don’t harvest until we’re ready to undertake that task.
Even though I feel guilty for not using it all, I am still grateful for what we have been able to use.
- We have eaten or frozen all of our cantaloupe and watermelon.
- We have harvested over a year’s-worth of garlic.
- We used our first planting of carrots in soups (the second planting is going to seed in the ground).
- We canned 40 quarts of tomato puree, used fresh tomato puree, and ate fresh tomatoes.
- We harvested, diced and froze around 30 large onions.
- We froze some green beans and foot-long beans (though most were wasted on the vine).
- We made cheesy squash a number of times and added zucchini and yellow squash to lots of other dishes.
- The gophers decided to share our potato harvest, but everything they didn’t eat, we did. I love home-grown potatoes!
- Mr. SixFiguresUnder loves Armenian cucumbers, so he enjoyed lots of them in his lunches until the tomato jungle made them somewhat inaccessible.
- We froze lots of blackberries and raspberries. I’ve made several razzleberry pies and canned about 7 quarts of razzleberry jam.
- We are just starting to harvest our sweet potatoes. This was our first year giving them a try, but it looks like a healthy crop. Sweet potatoes keep well and are very versatile.
- Our pumpkins were rather puny this year. Some of the vines were scorched during a hot spell when I wasn’t diligent at watering.
- My in-laws have several fruit trees that were productive this year. We helped thin apples in the summer and the kids have helped pick the fruit. We’ve had apples, peaches, plums and cherries that they’ve generously shared.
Okay… I’m feeling more gratitude than guilt now.
When I sat down to write about the garden, my mental focus was on the tomatoes and green beans that were rotting on the vine and all the wasted chard and carrots, but after doing a full analysis, I see that the garden has given us (and we’ve been able to use) more than I realized.
I guess that’s why we should regularly count our blessings. It’s so easy to get bogged down with our failures and focus on guilt. Taking an inventory of our successes and our blessings can really lighten our burdens and lift our spirits.
How about you?
- How did your garden do this year? Successes? Failures? Experiments?
- Have you felt your gratitude increase by “counting” your blessings? (If not you should try it!)
Linked to One Project at a Time, Thrifty Thursday
It sounds like you had a really good garden harvest! We did here also (Northern Kansas). Great weather, lots of rain and sunshine – in fact I’m still picking and canning tomatoes! My goal is to produce at least 75% of our food (we live on a farm/ranch, so it’s a little easier for us). During the heat of the summer, I run in to the same problems as you, watering, weeding, picking and still keeping up with the housework, laundry, cooking, kids, etc…. It’s all a lot of work. I’m glad I ran across your blog – it’s such an inspiration!
I completely neglected my garden this summer. I’m even considering not doing one next year, because of it. Although if we have a long hard winter again this year, I’m sure I’ll change my mind by next spring.
I know what you mean! Spring always has that effect on me too! 🙂
Thank you Stephanie for an older post about getting started on Etsy! Sorry this comment isn’t related to your current post but you closed the comments on the post that helped me to receive 40 free listings by clicking on your link. Thank you, thank you! I super appreciate that help. I had already begun setting up my shop but had not officially opened yet so I was able to take advantage of the savings!
On the current topic…Our garden did wonderful this year, it was small but enjoyed the fruits of our labor all summer and are planning a larger garden next year!
Thanks again!
You are welcome Lori! I didn’t realize comments were turned off on that post, so thanks for letting me know. I went back and fixed that.
I’m glad your garden was great this year! Best of luck with your new Etsy shop!!
There is definitely more to feel grateful about than guilty over, especially when you weren’t feeling up to gardening. I hope you’re feeling better now! It amazes me how much people are able to get out of their gardens. I’ve never tried it before, but I would like to whenever we get the space for it. 40 quarts of tomato puree would be really nice to have!
I am feeling better now. Thanks Erin. When you get the space, having a garden really is a great way to eat really great organic food (and teach your kiddos to work)!
I felt the same guilt…and then gratitude. After canning 40 plus quarts of salsa and freezing 12 cups of tomato sauce, our tomatoes sat on the vines. I simply didn’t have the energy to deal with tomatoes anymore! Now, to remember that fact next year when we plant our garden!
I hear you! We’re definitely planting fewer tomatoes next year. Ours were so jungly and out of control!
I hope you are feeling better. It is extremely hard to be the mom and be sick for a long period of time.
Reading your post makes me think of the expression, “Progress not Perfection.”
Gardens are fun but they are also work, which in our house ends up with a glut of food hitting in a concentrated period of time.
I did laugh when I saw in the opening paragraph that the year is listed as 2104 – Freudian Slip? Not wanting to even tag the actual year?! LOL
Haha thanks for catching that typo! 🙂 It is hard to be sick and mom! And yes gardens are a lot of work!!
Kudos to you! That’s an amazing list.
I understand the guilt thing and have had it dissipate when I sit down and list everything out. I too have a tendency to dismiss what I’ve already accomplished and focus in on what I haven’t done. I’m glad you felt better by the time you got done spelling it all out.
The effort you put into this path that you’ve chosen and your willingness to share it with everyone has been such an inspiration to me. So give yourself a big pat on the back for me and take a break, girl! 😀
Thank you Stacey! You’re sweet. 🙂
For me, the planting, weeding and watering is the easy part. The harvest is where I go wrong — it’s a lot of work to not let anything go to waste! My co-workers appreciate all of the produce I bring in and then I don’t feel guilty for letting it rot in the garden.
That’s great that you can share with your co-workers Jules! If we didn’t live in the boonies, I would love to have people come over and glean what they wanted.
Holy cow, you should NOT feel guilty! Being sick for a couple of months is a very valid excuse – not to mention that you got an incredible harvest anyway! I was feeling kinda braggy about my harvest this year, but not after hearing how much you got.
Tell me, what kind of potatoes do you prefer to grow? I’m planning to grow them next year for the first time and have no idea where to start…
I’m glad you had a great harvest. Don’t compare it to anyone else’s and feel less happy.
I love yukon gold potatoes. No matter what kind you plant, I think you’ll really like them better than store-bought because the skins are so thin and the potatoes are so flavorful.
Thank you so much for sharing!! I have been feeling guilt about the state of our tomatoes as well. It was our first year planting and I ran out of energy for harvesting/canning so I just stopped. Your post could not be more timely, and makes me feel like I am not a failure, just normal!
I really appreciate how open you are, and have started my family on our debt-free journey largely because of you. In addition to your gardening posts, which helped encourage me to begin one, I also started YNAB because of you. Best thing ever!! Sorry for rambling, but I think you are doing great things and am so glad to have found your blog! Thank you!!
Thanks for the kind words Mindy! I’m glad my blog has been encouraging. We can be just “normal” and not failures together! 🙂
I think that is an incredible amount of work! Even with some of the fruit going to waste on the vine just think of it as unexpected fertilizer for next year, or throw it into a compost pile. Just because it’s not feeding you it will feed your future plants.
Most of our garden went to salsa and tomato purée (seriously our tomatoes were out of control). But my husband loves Italian and Hispanic food, so it will be use quickly.
We’ll eventually put the vines into the compost pile and till everything else back into the garden.
Mmmm salsa sounds delicious!
I am enjoying your blog. Thank you especially for publishing your actual budget numbers. That is so helpful! Are you feeling better now? I hope so! I used to have chronic fatigue syndrome so I have alot of sympathy for someone who hasn’t been feeling well!
Thanks Kristie. I am feeling a lot better and have much more energy!
I know just how you feel! I was so disappointed with our turnout this year and didn’t feel better about it until I started counting up what we used. We had an inordinate amount of pests (vine borers, tomato blight, Japanese beetles on the fruit trees) and I was very frustrated to see so much work go to waste. I also see it as a good lesson that, despite hard work, not everything always goes as planned. That’s a good reminder for this slap-dash, immediate gratification world we live in nowadays!
Oh pests are so frustrating! I’m sorry it was a rough year for your garden! You’re right that even with diligent hard work things don’t always go as planned.
Uh-oh, your Super Woman cape has a wrinkle in one corner!
Really, that sounds like an amazing amount of work! And it sounds like your carrots and beans will already be planted next year 🙂
I am always so inspired when I read your posts!
It’s official– I’m no super woman! 🙂
We should have lots of “volunteers” next spring with the amount of produce that has gone to seed or just stayed in the garden!