Veggie Garden Totals for 2023

Well, I just froze the final bits from our little urban garden this year, so here's a bit of a recap:

I started soaking red pepper seeds around March 1st (should start sooner) and then planted them around March 12th. I started basil, cilantro, zinnias, and 2 varieties of tomatoes at the same time as well. And a few weeks after that, I started cucumbers, zucchini, and pumpkins (just for fun). Here's a pic of my flats on April 12th:

Zinnias, red peppers, cukes, and zukes getting some sun on the porch.


Zinnias, tomatoes, and herbs.


Red peppers and tomatoes.


Repotting on April 17th...


... then back under the grow lights.


May 20th: getting some plants in the ground from the garden center...


... while still moving my started-from-seed tomatoes in and out of the house every day.


May 22nd: getting my own tomatoes in the ground!


My neighbor added those 2 beds and told me to use the far one, so that's where the tomatoes are.


Radishes and more.


June 1st.


Zucchinis.


My "from seed" tomatoes.


And my 2nd and 3rd cucumber on June 1st!


June 16th: tomatoes going strong!


Our neighbor decided to let us use the final bed! So we threw random things
in it to try: more kinds of peppers, kohlrabi, eggplant, broccoli, etc.


June 22nd: our first cherry tomatoes of the year! (And some not-fully-pollinated zukes.)




Delivery to the neighbors for letting us use their yard!


June 29th.


Our "from seed" tomatoes going nuts on July 1st!
We tried the "Florida weave" method of holding them up, and it worked well!


July 4th.


Early July harvest.


Early July harvest.


July 14th. The kohlrabis had to be caged because the bunnies loved them.


July 14th harvest.


SEVEN varieties of tomatoes (and 2 eggplants) on July 25th.


July 30th: those purple tomatoes to the left were my favorite this year!


Aug 1st!


Our "from seed" tomatoes doing well within their "Florida weave."


Big ole' basil on Aug 1st.


Another 7 varities of tomatoes on Aug 1st.


Aug 23rd. We got back from our trip to Italy to find some "missed" cucumbers!...


...but the plants were still going strong.

There was a bad hail storm that came through while we were in Italy, and it broke about every bloom off all our tomato plants. So the rest of August was pretty crappy for harvest. Our totals took a big hit because of that storm.

Sept 9th.


Sept 20th.


Early Oct harvest.


Another early Oct harvest.


Oct 17th and still getting some goodies!


Oct 27th: pulled everything because it was going to freeze hard.


Some of our final goodies.


Seeing what tomatoes would ripen on the counter.

I had nearly 40 cherry tomatoes ripen a few weeks ago for a final mid-November caprese salad, but most of the bigger beefsteak tomatoes would go bad before they ripened. So this past weekend, I finally cleaned up the surviving bigger tomatoes (mostly hybrids with a few purples) to pop in the freezer for some winter chili:

And here's my tally log from the year:

Best performers include:
- 1,289 cherry tomatoes (between 2 plants)
- 950 yellow pear tomatoes (from 1 plant)
- 154 cucumbers
- 128 bush cherry tomatoes
- 111 hybrid tomatoes
- 55 early girl tomatoes
- 47 beefsteak tomatoes
- 84 total peppers (across 6 different varieties)

We harvested more cherry tomatoes in 2020, but we harvested a wider selection of varieties this year (and there was that hail storm in August that was a real hit to our totals).

I don't think I've posted a "recap" on the garden like this since 2020, but here are the recaps I can find: the first half of 2020 (as we built new beds in our neighbor's yard), the final 2020 totals, 2017, 2016, 2015, and our first year in 2014.