How Much Does a Garden Grow: December

Welcome to the last installation of "How Much Does a Garden Grow" for 2011.  The important message here is I'M STILL GARDENING IN DECEMBER!  This is not an accomplishment I've ever achieved before, so even though the monthly harvest was small, I am proud.

First, the experimental tomato plant, which I dragged container-and-all into the sunroom in October, finally gave up due to aphids and cold weather and old age.  I know I have aphids in my garden; they are never a problem, because they seem to be regulated by whatever their natural predator is.  That predator wasn't in the sunroom.  Yet, the plant seemed relatively unbothered until a few days ago when the temps in the room dropped to around 50, and the plant gave up.

I got 5 oz. of green tomatoes off that plant before I left it to take to compost, which is 93 cents worth retail (as best as I can tell).  It is also a tremendous victory, because who else in Ohio is picking tomatoes two days after Christmas?

Additionally, I picked a couple of ounces of leeks, which are still doing well, and a couple of ounces of chard and lettuce.  Let's call that $3 worth of produce.

So, my estimate for the month was half a pound of produce for a retail value of $3.93.

Otherwise, we are getting by just fine on canned and frozen produce.  We've eaten all of the dried tomatoes and nearly all of the potatoes and onions, so we may have to start supplementing from the store soon.  But, as you might remember, January starts our tally afresh, like any good business.  The seed catalogs started arriving this week, so now my 2012 challenge is to keep my gardening business more solvent than most countries' governments.  Wait, I need a harder goal than that.....

2011 Tally to Date: 127.19 lbs of crops; $253.29 saved