Garden Tips – Be Patient and Observe

This garden tip can increase your over all harvest by 5% or more.  In some years you’ll get 100% of what you would have without doing it.

The only things you need to do are be patient and observe what you have.

Here are some examples:

Blueberries

The normal state of affairs.

I have 6 bushes.  I harvest everyday from about the first week in June through the middle of July.  In addition to fresh eating and pies during the season, I like to have at least 12 to 16 quarts for the freezer.

When January comes and my supply of almost everything from the garden is dwindling,  I depend on those berries. For at least 60 of the dark days of winter, I have a tiny blueberry pie to lift our spirits and encourage us to plan for spring.

How the tip comes into play.

Because, I want the berries for the winter, I limit our number of  in-season pies.

By July I am harvesting various vegetables in the garden everyday.  I always continue to check the blueberry bushes (in the garden), although at first glance it looks as if there is nothing on the bush.

For the next 30 days after the berry season is over I manage to get at least 10 small blueberry pies by collecting a handful of berries everyday. (Takes about 5  minutes or less.)

This is an increase of about 8% of the part of my yield that is allotted to fresh eating and pies in season!  When you love blueberries as much as we do ——-it’s a welcomed increase!

Green beans

The normal state of affairs.

There is nothing like fresh green beans from the garden. (I think they loose flavor when canned and the texture change of frozen beans is not to our liking except in soups.)  From May through September I make 5 small plantings to have them continuously for fresh eating and a few pints of frozen for soup. They produce well and I harvest every other day.

How the tip comes into play.

This year I planted 5 times.  The first 3 plantings did not germinate because of extreme drought. The 4th and 5th plantings germinated.  They grew a bit. Then sat there and sat there.  I had a great desire to pull them up — but I know better from past experience.

Then the rain came the first of October.  I had a handful of beans on the 4th planting and blossoms on the 5th planting immediately after the rain. We’ve had about 3 meals from the 4th planting and I feel sure the best is yet to come.

Lettuce or greens for salads and lunch.

The normal state of affairs.

If you are a regular reader, you know I love lettuce. I hate being limited in what I can pick, so most of the time I have lots of it.

How the tip comes into play.

I start my lettuce in flats and then transplant to the garden.  Some years in the fall — this year being one of them — I have trouble with something (I think grasshoppers or crickets) eating my seedlings. (No slugs in the beds because it’s been so dry.)

In spite of this, I have managed to come up with enough greens for our lunch everyday.

The few beets that remained in the ground through the summer are providing a leaf or two each day. They looked so awful during the summer and I knew the beets would not be good, but left them just for this reason.

The new stir-fry mix of greens I planted in the spring reseeded one little plant. It provides another leaf or two.

A few lettuce plants managed to reseed in a place that was suited to germination and they two have offered a leaf or two.

A few young radish greens add to the mix.

And of course, there is arugula which reseeds itself and delights me every year.

Bottom line commentary.

If you’ve lived a while, you know it’s amazing what you can accomplish in small amounts of time if you work at it consistently.  If you try to eat organically from your garden, the same “here a little, there a little” principle applies.

I try never to underestimate the power of a little.  Those little bits can add a great deal of joy to life.