Urban Sustainable Living - Sept 10

Wow, Summer has rushed past and our fall crops are starting to come into bloom. These pics are from a couple weeks ago so the beans are putting on fruit and the peas are starting to need cages to climb. Our onions are greening up and the amaranth is blooming a lot. Should have plenty of amaranth seed next year if these go ahead and seed out. Our herb "garden" is in good shape and we should be pulling a lot of it soon for drying before the weather turns. We are also getting some persimmons, but not near as many or as big as last year and these are heavily seeded so we're wondering if it is a cycle thing or was our hot summer the culprit. Our asparagus is coming along, but it'll be a couple more years before it is ready to harvest. Maybe we can keep it going that long. Busy with Church Camp and Church Conference this summer burned off a lot of our garden, but things have been perking up with regular watering and cooler weather.

Harvest Update: Wanted to post that we reviewed our records and as best we could tell, we harvested about 50 lbs of fresh fruit and vegetables from our little back yard garden this spring, mostly in May and June. This was not counting over ripe or bird bitten that was given to the chickens. Who in turn peaked this spring giving us over 100 eggs from March through May. Not enough food to sustain us, but 50 lbs more than we were growing a couple years ago and undoubtedly an improvement on our family's nutrition, education, and independence.