01
Aug 2010

Saturday’s Harvest

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Everyday lately we’ve been harvesting a good chunk of our food from our backyard.  I’ve noticed that our grocery bill is less than half of our usual total, and the cart looks pretty empty when we get to the checkout stand. 

Here are a couple of pictures that show most of what we harvested yesterday:

100_8704 100_8703

We got our first peppers yesterday, and our first broccoli.  We also found a few zucchinis that had been hiding… oops!  They are huge!  The pile of green beans in the top photo came from one plant, and we have about 50 plants out there, so we’ve been eating lots of beans lately. 

Nearly all of that food was gone by the end of the day – everything except the tomatoes and the four biggest zucchini.  We have the tomatoes in a bowl on the counter for snacking, and there are still a few left.  The big zucchini are all shredded and in the freezer – our first preserving of the summer! 

Now that we’re getting so much food from our garden, all the work that we put in early in the spring to dig beds, add compost, and tend to our little seedlings seems very much worth it. 

Hope you’re all having a great weekend!

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  1. Smart Thrifting And A Good Harvest
  2. Shredded Zucchini Salad
  3. Our Homemade Strawberry Hanger
  4. Tomatoes In January
  5. Tomato Watermelon Salad
Category: food, garden, organic living
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  • http://www.uncommonlybrilliant.blogspot.com Michael

    “all that work”, I’m sure even then it was a labor of love.

    That must be satisfying going to your garden for your food.

  • MP

    Gorgeous!

  • http://www.themagicthatisjanis.blogspot.com/ Janis

    impressive! love your blog by the way.

  • http://None Judy

    Way to go, FB. The photos really make me want to return to my farm back in my home country!! I am getting envious of you – all those fresh vegetables, especially the green beans…..

  • Alexandra

    Looks beautiful! I get such a thrill going out to the garden each day to see what’s ready to be picked! What a bounty!

  • Trent

    Very nice harvest, FB! Like you, our family is enjoying our first garden (as well as our first CSA participation) this year. We also started to compost all of our plant-based kitchen scraps and be very aggressive in recycling everything that our city allows. You mentioned that your shopping cart is pretty light these days. We have noticed that also. In addition, we have noticed our weekly trash bin being very light. Some weeks, we have just one kitchen trash bag for our family of four. Life is so much better with these changes – better for our health and our wealth and our environment. Thanks for your blog – very good stuff!! I read a lot of blogs and yours is on the short “never miss a post” list.

  • Patricia Polk

    You tell me?

    I have a community garden plot. I started it as a hobby, but in 2009, I used some as food. I find myself this year having to diet to lose the 30+ pounds I gained. I decided to bite the bullett (or Carrot) and try to use it as food.

    Is it me or does some foods just taste better. I never liked basil as much as I like it now. I actually like cucumbers and squash is king. I don’t feel cheated with the lettuce from my garden as I feel with store produce. I actually ate cod fish because of the receipe I got from a fellow gardener using Dill in the community garden. Unbelievable.

    If the is what the fugal lifestyle is, I have been cheating myself all my life!!!

  • http://frugalbabe.com Frugal Babe

    Patricia,
    I agree – food that you just picked from your own garden tastes a lot better than anything you’ll find in the grocery store. It hasn’t traveled for days in a truck, it hasn’t been sprayed with strange chemicals, it hasn’t been genetically modified (depending on what kind of seeds you use), and it also comes with a big helping of fulfillment that goes along with tending your garden.

  • http://www.wherebeautymeetsfunction.blogspot.com/ Erin

    I can’t wait to start a garden next spring! I’m new to gardening and I’ve done fabulous with herbs this year – basil, thyme, oregano, and chives. I’ve just mixed them into my flower beds because they are very pretty and fragrant too.

    My neighbor has been giving me some her abundance of tomatoes…they taste better than any tomato I’ve ever eaten in my life. So, if this is what homegrown tastes like…heck, I might actually start ENJOYING eating healthy. ;)

  • Meg

    FB – You mentioned you have 50 green bean plants. Are they bush beans or trellis? I’ve planted about 100 bush beans, and have received 10 cups worth of harvest from the first 50, and the second 50 are growing now so that we can have them in a month or so.

    We have 28 tomato plants. Can you say spaghetti sauce & salsa? :-)

    ~M

  • FrugalBabe

    Meg,
    We have bush beans. As a newbie, I didn’t know until just a few weeks ago that bush beans don’t produce all summer :( We didn’t plant any pole/trellis beans this year, but we will next year. I’m going to harvest all the bush beans tomorrow morning, and freeze them. Then I’ll see if any more grow back – if not, I’ll pull out the plants and replace them with something new. I’ve already torn out a bunch of spinach and peas and replaced them with swiss chard, kale, and radishes. I’m on my fourth or fifth round of radishes this summer. You have to keep replanting them every few weeks, but they grow so fast that it doesn’t take long to get new ones each time.
    We have about 60 tomato plants, so I think there will be a lot of canning later this month!

  • http://radioventriloquist.blogspot.com GC

    My Mom has that problem with zucchinis also.
    They are monstrous if you don’t get out there right away.

  • Charlotte K

    I’m just now starting to garden in a meaningful way. Last night I made enough pesto to last the winter through and it felt incredibly good to know I’d provided for myself. Next year more food plants! (and more zinnias, always more zinnias, they cheer the soul!)

  • http://None Judy

    On a completely different note altogether – would you know why Green and Crunchy’s site has been suspended? I like reading her blog even though I have a completely different diet :) Have a great weekend!

  • http://frugalbabe.com Frugal Babe

    Judy,
    I don’t know, but I’m bummed about it too! I just tried to visit Green and Crunchy yesterday and got the site suspended message. :( I know she’s got a lot going on… I sometimes have difficulty finding time to blog, and I only have one child. She’s got five, and homeschools her kids, and has another one on the way – maybe the blog just didn’t fit in the schedule anymore.

  • Meg

    FrugalBabe,

    Do you find your bush beans to be reproducing?!? Mine are, and in abundance! I just picked a good 10+ cups of greenbeans…and that is since I picked about 4 cups mid last week.

    I have 100 of them planted. I didnt see any flowers on the bush beans after I first started to harvest, so I planted 40 more so I could get some more beans. This morning while I was picking greenbeans (from the original plants), I was singing in my head: “Bean, beans, every-where. Beans, beans, in my hair!” I know, corny, but they were everywhere!

  • FrugalBabe

    Meg,
    Our bushbeans are just about finished for the season. I have about ten quarts of beans in the freezer, and we’ve eaten them several days a week for the last six weeks or so, but there aren’t many left. Maybe next year we’ll try pole beans, which I think keep producing all season.

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