About a month later -Aug 2008

Here's how the garden grows by August. As you can see, I planted just a little too much in that west bed. The red onions have been pretty completely overrun by the cukes, tomato and zucchini. Notice the pile of straw in front of the potato bin. While I was out of town for a couple weeks, my husband was caring for the garden. He didn't realize that the potato bin was watered every time the sprinklers ran in for the lawn above. As they started to yellow, he thought they were dry, so he watered them some more... I tried to salvage them, but most were too far gone. Next time, the potatoes go to the other side of the garden!

I started tracking yields in August. Before I kept track, the bulk of my green beans and sugar snap peas came in (I'd guess a few pounds, it's when I was gone & DH was picking). Lettuce, spinach, and radishes weren't measured either.

In August, Sept & Oct, I harvested (approximately):

6.5# yellow and green beans (mostly yellow)

30 cucumbers 6-8" about 13#

20 zuchinni 6-8" about 11#, and about 4# baby ones before the freeze

2 dozen ears of corn (varying quality though - need to work on those a little...)

3# carrots (not very sweet though)

20 tomatoes, not so great ones, we're trying some other varieties next year.

6# onions

about a dozen (3 1/2# I think) peppers (immature/green & purple)

and one unripe watermelon, plus a tiny almost ripe one...

I am going to make a real effort to keep track of both my costs and my yields next year, to see how it pencils out.

Although there were some flaws in my planning, and a couple of mishaps along the way, all in all I felt it was a successful garden. By the end of summer, I decided to plan an expansion...