End of Harvest 2015

   Hey guys, I apologize for the long absence (again). It turns out I'm not a very disciplined blogger. I've also had a rough summer emotionally and physically. But as promised I'm going to share some things I learned from the past growing season. Some of our veggies and produce did swell and others were total flops. 

• Our corn was the first of our plants to rear their little heads and seemed to be doing very well until mid May. First they began to yellow which I attributed to heat. But after losing about half of them and doing some research I discovered that is a common problem with corn and is attributed to not enough Nitrogen in the soil. After adding tons of Nitrogen their color returned to normal but the damage was seemingly done and we ended up with what looked like two dozen ears of baby corn. Live and learn!
• Tomatoes.... oh tomatoes, how you let me down.... I've been known to have very prolific tomato plants until this summer. I've had one potted Roma produce more tomatoes than I got all summer from my 15 Mortgage Lifters. But the excessive rain we received in the spring had a lot to do with it. Also, I learned that excessive fertilizing causes plants to grow exponentially. The plant becomes so focused on growing that it rarely flowers and fruits. Thus I ended up with 7 foot tall tomato plants and very few tomatoes. 
• Do not ever plant anything near a jalapeno pepper. I planted all of my peppers in a single box this year and they are ALL incredibly hot. My bell peppers can't even be used in cooking because they're basically enormous, colorful jalapenos. 
• We had some success with out watermelons this year and harvested 6 total. Our largest weighed in at 12lbs. One mistake was tilling a watermelon patch outside our fenced in vegetable gardens. My watermelons were all about the size of softballs and some rabbits ravaged all the vines in a single night. We ended up with a lot of single serve melons because of this. Also, something to consider about watermelons is the price of the water they consume. While growing our water bill went up about $20 a month just for them. Is that really worth it? Probably not considering how few and how small we ended up harvesting. Also, do not attempt to grow unless you're a SAHM, SAHW, or retired- because you will be watering them 3-4 times a day in the middle of Texas summer.  

    

   I know this sounds like a lot of mistakes and problems but we actually had a very good season. On average my grocery bill was about $70 for the majority of the harvest season. 







We harvested:
18 Squash
40 Zucchinis
20 Large tomatoes
An uncountable number of cherry tomatoes
Minimal inedible tiny corn
32 Cucumbers
8 birdhouse Gourds
10lbs of Green Beans
20 Jalapenos
5 Incredibly spicy Bell Peppers
6 Watermelons
52 Red Globe and Elberta Peaches (That's 48 up from last year!)
25 Small Carrots
Minimal amount of Iceberg Lettuce (too hot for a full sun spring crop)
Minimal amount of Collard Greens (same as above)
100+ wild plums
30lbs of wild blackberries (My freezer is stuffed full of them)
5lbs of  mammoth Sunflower seeds
5lbs of Snap Peas 
10 Key Limes
5 Meyer Lemons 
4lbs of Strawberries

We also welcomed 20 new chickens and 10 ducks to the farm this season! Free range eggs are now available from our farm. If you're interested in ordering please visit our facebook page under the name of The Paschall Family Farm & Bakery.

Now time to  preserve the harvest! 

 -Colleen P. & The Little Red Homestead