Garden value vs. cost of vegetable garden

Calculating the value of the vegetable garden has been an ongoing project this summer, though it's been difficult to keep track of every last bite we pull out of our yard. For the purposes of pricing what this stuff might be worth at the market, I'm using prices for regular commercial produce at the regular chain supermarket. The stuff I'm growing is organic, but I'm ignoring that to just focus on the basic price of vegetables at the store vs. what I can "save" by growing this things myself. I might consider revaluing this when I tally everything up at the end of the season.

The local farmer's market and whole food, for example, are charging an arm and leg this season for field tomatoes - compared to what the Shaw's charges for its hothouse tomatoes. To date, we've harvested:

• 8 lbs green beans (pole beans and haricot verts)
• 10 lbs of tomatoes (heirloom, yellow and regular red)
• 4 pints of red and yellow grape tomatoes
• 16 cucumbers (mostly marketmores, with some persians)
• 10 jalapeno peppers
• 2 sweet peppers
• 1 green bell pepper
• 8 bunches of carrots
• 3 lbs of snap peas
• 5 pints of strawberries
• several bags of bibb lettuce, spinach and mache
• 4 bunches of basil

That's $131 worth of food from the garden. Balance that against this year's cost of $208 for soil amendments, seeds and plant starts. It's difficult to calculate capital investments from years past for things like shovels, trowels, wheel barrow, etc., or for things like water and time.

We still have the corn, zucchini, leeks, red onions, pumpkins, more beans, chard, more lettuce, eggplants, more peppers, more cucumbers and loads more tomatoes yet to come....

The winner in terms of value of crop vs. total space and time consumed has been the green beans, particularly the haricot verts, which have taken very little effort, very little space and produce quite a lot.

Tomato disease - spots on leaves

Late blight has plagued tomatoes across the northeast this season due in large part to the very rainy June and blamed on poor quality tomato starts sold at home stores like Home Depot and Lowes. (These stores don't have the same quality concerns as local nurseries and will sell you any diseased plant they can offload on the unsuspecting!) So when my tomatoes took a turn for the worse back in July, I assumed I was having the same tomato blight problems as the rest of Boston.

Spots first appeared on some lower leaves of a Yellow Girl plant - black spots with white centers and yellow rings. The spotted leaves eventually withered and died and the disease moved up the plant, browning and dying as it went. Then quickly spread to neighboring tomato plants.

Patient Zero - the yellow girl - offered up 6 perfectly beautiful tomatoes before dying completely.

The other affected plants have similarly had no problem yielding delicious, healthy looking tomatoes, even while the plants themselves are slowly browing and dying.

I did what I could - I clipped off the affected portions, pruned heavily to try to lighten the plants and increase air circulation, but the infection continues.

I began to wonder if tomato blight was really my problem when I read that tomato blight produces black, greasy looking spots.

Now I think my problem is either bacterial leaf spot or septoria, but I continue to be puzzled by the fact that the fruit itself doesn't appear to be affected by whatever disease is killing the plants. Despite the problems, we have gotten many pounds of tomatoes out of our six plants. Ironically, the Black Krim Tomato, the single heirloom variety I'm growing, is the one plant that seem to be fending off the disease somewhat successfully.

Growing leeks from seed part 5

The leeks were painfully slow to get started, but they are growing rapidly now - almost twice as thick as they were 2 weeks ago.

I continue to mound the dirt around their stems - hoping to increase the white areas at the bottom of the plants which is the best for eating.

The leeks have been disease free and haven't been bothered by any pests. The only drawback to growing leeks is that they take their sweet time. Leeks are not a fast-growing crop!

Black beauty eggplants

The eggplants are on their way. I have 2 black beauty plants, which are about 24" high. The eggplants themselves are about the size of a softball and growing quickly. Despite the many problems of the adjacent tomato plants (also nightshades like the eggplants), the eggplants are doing well and showing no sign of any disease.

Planting vegetables in August

On a 1 week vacation, my grandfather would enjoy himself for 3 days. Then, on the 4th day, he would start packing up to go home.

Don't write the summer off already. Early to mid-August is great time to plant a 2nd crop of cool weather plants. The first frost in Boston isn't usually until sometime in early to mid-October, which leaves just about 60 days for some lettuce, spinach or radish to be ready to eat.

This August, I've planted cilantro, parsnips, and bibb lettuce. Having seedlings emerging in the heat of August, is an entirely different game. Make sure everything gets enough water and watch out for rabbits who've been breeding like...well rabbits...all summer and have lots of hungry mouths to feed.

Growing corn in small gardens

The corn is tasseling, and with the tasseling comes the little aphids along the tassel. Last year, these did not cause any. Apparently, these are only a problem if they interfere with pollination. Corn pollinates by banging their tassels against each other, usually in a light breeze, though I do this manually to ensure pollination.

If the problem gets worse, I will start by washing the aphids off with a hose.

Growing Pumpkins in Small Gardens

The first pumpkin makes an appearance by early August. This is my second year of growing pumpkins in our small garden, and while I had a success last year - one good size pumpkin ready in time for Halloween, several others were nibbled by squirrels and destroyed before the vine wilted and died entirely.

We have 2 good vines growing this year, winding their way down through the corn and along the stone wall, and already have several little pumpkins forming. But the wet summer has not been kind to our pumpkins, and I'm already seeing signs of yellowing leaves.

I took a hint from a gardening book and pruned off every few leaves on the pumpkin vine to try to improve air circulation. We'll see if they make it to October

Growing parsnips

A parsnip seedling coming up. I planted these about a month ago. Fewer than 5 sprouted, and it looks like some critter is eating the seedlings as they come up. I reseeded them.

I also sowed more cilantro in the area where I had pulled up carrots.

Growing bell peppers

A bell pepper almost ready. 2 other peppers were felled by critters during our vacation.

Growing leeks from seed part 4

These better be the best vegetables ever, because they are taking for ever. The leeks are now about as fat as my fat little finger. At the rate they're growing, I might have some skinny leeks by the end of September. Add to that the fact that I only have about 12 in the 3 square foot space, and I'm not feeling like the leeks have worked out this year.

Growing haricot verts

The beans (haricot verts and kentucky blue) are doing well growing up the teepee. We pulled plenty off before we left, and another 2 lbs when we returned.

The beans have been a great crop planted in their 3'x3' area, plus the ones that I interplanted with the corn are fruiting. They're providing several dinners worth of vegetables each week.

Untended vegetable garden

Two weeks of vacation left the vegetable garden pretty ravaged. The bunnies have had a field day munching the basil and squash flowers. The tomatoes grew 2 feet and collapsed under their own weight, taking the stakes down with them and smothering the peppers and eggplant. G built a new contraption to hold them up. (Apparently it rained a lot while we were away, plus we had the sprinkler setup on the timer to go off everyday for 30 minutes.) The blight is taking over the tomatoes. I'm hoping that having them upright and better air circulation will help with the blight, but I've lost the yellow tomato altogether.

Still, we pulled about 2 lbs of beans, buckets of grape tomatoes and a dozen cucumbers out of the garden when we returned. I pickled up the green beans with rosemary and lemon