The garden in all its splendor. Photo taken in early August.
The last CSA shares were distributed out last week, (nothing but rave reviews in terms of quantity and quality!) Dave and the garden crew are spending this week and the next few to finally put the garden to bed. An annual tradition of pulling irrigation hoses and planting garlic (for overwinter germination) have been completed, and now the time to look back is on us.
The variety and flavor of the garden was out of this world.
Dave gave me an amount the garden produced this summer. Counting all the lettuces, garlics, tomatoes (cherry and sliceable), onions, zucchinis, squash, and (of course) all of carrots, we came up with 5,472 lbs out of the garden. Here’s the funny thing, the garden isn’t done giving it’s best. We’ve got a full hoop house that has full raised beds of lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and peppers. We’ll add to the almost 3 tons of food for a couple more weeks.
Oh, and if you’ve been paying attention, you know that this year, we’ve had a HUGE bumper crop of carrots. Every week, Britney drops off a wheelbarrow full of the orange roots promising that “This one’s probably the last.” They’ve been dropping off wheelbarrows for weeks, now. The current total is over 900 lbs. of carrots this year. Chef Chris has quipped he’s gonna make carrot cake every week until he runs out.
How cool is that?! Yum!
Speaking of Chris, let’s revisit some of the delicious food he’s put together for staff and Eco Campers. Our campus has been blessed with uncommon recipes from our locally grown sources. Can’t beat it.
This summer we also took in 70 chicks. Jim and crew put together a hen house in the south field where they could be best raised. After two wonderful months of raising them, they had their bad day in early August. They turned out large and delicious, but where we had started with 71 chicks, we ended with 72 butchered. We’re not sure where the extra bird came from, but we’re pretty sure it was a chicken.
Healthy, happy, free-range chickens made their home this summer in the south fields.
While we were happy to host our flock for the summer, we also were able to give many tours throughout the growing season.
We’d love to hear what you did this summer. How did your garden perform? What were some of your successes? Were there any less than successful parts to your summer? We’d love to here them.