Post by murrayc on Sept 18, 2017 7:19:14 GMT
I'm afraid that a lifetime spent in jobs where accurate measurement of results was considered vital has left me as something of a stats nerd. Every year I keep a record of what I have sown and what it has produced, usually by weight. It is something to look back on in winter, to reflect on how the house was in spring with seedlings in pots on every windowsill and the greenhouse crammed with trays; then later those early visits to the plot to dig and plant, bed by bed until the whole patchwork is complete and the first fruits begin to show; then later still the dawn trips to water while the pressure is high and few are around; finally the days of bringing back basketfuls of fresh green vegetables, the crisp crunch and the tender flavours; finally in these rainy weeks of autumn the last picking of this and that, each one carefully stored or frozen, or made into soup, to be cherished throughout the dark months of winter. To be able to si down and look at the scale of what has been grown is to relive all of those pleasures and of course to start afresh with hopes for next year: whay shouldn't we plant this or that, or give this thing a try?
That is why I've kept records and this year has been a superb one for me and Pat on our 6 rod plot, visiting perhaps 3 or 4 times a week for 2 hours each. We don't claim to be superb gardeners, though there are several on the site that I do wholeheartedly admire for their blend of skills and experience and their results are stunning to the eye as much as to the stomach. Here are the main records of what we have cropped this year, by pounds weight. In all - and excluding the winter-sown alliums, onions, garlic and shallots, which I didn't weigh - we have brought back at least 350 lbs, and tried not to waste too much of what we have grown. Our big successes speak for themselves in the chart below. Others that didn't crop quite so well have still brought pleasure; for example we only picked about 5 lbs of peas, although we had a 28 foot row of them. This may have been partly due to the extreme heat in late June when they were close to maturity and the consequent lack of needful watering. That's something to think of for the future.
Anyway, here is our record and I'd be interested to see what others have recorded, and how good a summer they have had. I know that wilbarra for one keeps meticulous records going back a long way. Whatever you produced, I hope you all had a good time working the plots and that the winter is kind to you and the crops you have in the ground now.
That is why I've kept records and this year has been a superb one for me and Pat on our 6 rod plot, visiting perhaps 3 or 4 times a week for 2 hours each. We don't claim to be superb gardeners, though there are several on the site that I do wholeheartedly admire for their blend of skills and experience and their results are stunning to the eye as much as to the stomach. Here are the main records of what we have cropped this year, by pounds weight. In all - and excluding the winter-sown alliums, onions, garlic and shallots, which I didn't weigh - we have brought back at least 350 lbs, and tried not to waste too much of what we have grown. Our big successes speak for themselves in the chart below. Others that didn't crop quite so well have still brought pleasure; for example we only picked about 5 lbs of peas, although we had a 28 foot row of them. This may have been partly due to the extreme heat in late June when they were close to maturity and the consequent lack of needful watering. That's something to think of for the future.
Anyway, here is our record and I'd be interested to see what others have recorded, and how good a summer they have had. I know that wilbarra for one keeps meticulous records going back a long way. Whatever you produced, I hope you all had a good time working the plots and that the winter is kind to you and the crops you have in the ground now.