grow and measure

Chef Daniel in the kitchen with Asturian kale grown in his home garden — Last August, my garden produced a good crop of Asturian kale. This year, I’m going to measure everything my garden produces.

I’ve been gardening for many years, and often wonder how much food my garden actually produces. Years ago, my summer garden covered a whole field. Now that I have kids, I only have time for a small plot — 112 square feet. Pretty small and manageable for a busy guy like me, right?

I garden for the love of it, and of course it provides organic food for my family. But how much food comes from this small garden?

This year I decided to find out.

At harvest time, I’m going to try to count and maybe even weigh every vegetable and fruit (yes, we even have fruit: young blueberry bushes, a fig tree, a sour cherry tree and two plum trees) that we harvest from our yard. Besides the main garden, I also have two secondary plots that measure 9’x3′ and 24’x3′. That’s a total of 211 square feet under cultivation.

I’ll probably wish I had never started this project by the time the zucchini comes in, but maybe this way I’ll be able to see if gardening is more than a hobby that is good for my soul 🙂

Happy gardening!