Photos of a meagre harvest

I pulled off a small harvest of a few different plants this year. My back yard didn't too as well as it has before, and many other gardeners and farmers had the same experience. Certain crops just wouldn't germinated, others wouldn't grow, and others wouldn't flower. Weather extremes, drought, fires, and even fertilizer shortages are impacting growers across the continent. Here in BC, we had a long cool spring, then a VERY hot summer, but thankfully not as much wildfire activity in my area compared to last year. Now, it's time to bring in most of the garden, as the nights begin to get chilly.

I'm a renowned organic tomato gardener (and heirloom seed distributor) but just about failed to produce anything this year! Nights were cold until July, so they wouldn't germinate. Then the heat came, before the plants were even an inch tall, scorching them. It was a struggle but I nurtured a few through the heat waves, only to have a deer break into my fenced yard and eat all the green tomatoes and flowers. Now a month later, and a handful of these orange bell tomatoes are ripening. At least I'll get some fresh seed stock to put away, but it would have been nice to get a proper crop, because they're quite tasty.

The sweet 100 cherry tomatoes did a little better, so in addition to getting my heirloom seeds back, I'll get a few pounds of bitesize red tomatoes.

2 other varieties just completely failed this year. I'm glad I have a few seeds held back, so I can try again soon, and replenish my seed stock.

Potatoes was a better crop for me this year. I didn't get as many of the little bugs that mark the surface of the skins, so they're prettier this year. I planted a fair number, and was pleased to pull out several meals of potatoes in July, several more in August, and now this final haul in September. We boiled/steamed them with green and yellow beans from the garden. The beans are all done now, but they were also a pretty good crop for me this year.

That's orache, aka "mountain spinach", in its mature form. Quite a plant, actually. This was my first time growing it, and I'm impressed. We ate the tender leaves several times through the spring and summer. Now it has bolted and gone to seed.

I hope to grow it again, so I'm collecting a few hundred seeds.

There's @MediKatie, harvesting seeds from her sunflower plant. She grows sunflowers every year, no matter where we are.

I had a volunteer carnival squash plant come up, so I made room for it, and it produced me a few of these nice gourds. I'll harvest them soon, just waiting for them to mature a little more.

My garlic harvest is curing. I planted about 100 cloves last autumn, and they enjoyed the long cool spring. But they got really fried in the summer heat and basically just finished up early (and small). I'm not complaining, but it certainly could have been better. At least we'll have enough for our kitchen use for most of the year, and enough to start another crop (if I find somewhere to rent that has a garden).

@MediKatie bought organic tomatoes from a local grower at the farmers market, and we canned them. There's the finished product, after about an hour of coring, scoring, blanching, peeling, and saucing.

8 big jars put aside for winter, plus a big pot of spaghetti sauce for pasta over the next couple weeks.

I didn't get a big tomato harvest myself, but it's nice to be able to lean on local growers who did. Bad weather and other conditions impact everyone to a degree, but some more than others.

Another tactic I found useful this year was having many crops going. Rough conditions can impact certain things, but usually not EVERYthing. Beans, peas, and potatoes did well for me, even as other plants flopped. Hedging your bets makes sense. If I had just planted a single crop, say tomatoes, I would probably be really upset right now.

But I'm pretty happy with my meagre harvest.

I just hope I can find somewhere for my wife and our kids to live, soon. A garden is important to us, but we may not be able to find something suitable. There are essentially no rentals available in BC. It's unprecedented. We are going to be lucky if we aren't on the street in 6 weeks, and I mean that literally. My Grampa's shovels and other tools may have to go into storage! The idea of not being able to grow food again makes me sad, but I'm trying to stay hopeful that we'll pull off a miracle and find somewhere to rent.

If I do, there will be many more garden photos coming in 2023 : ))

DRutter

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