Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Farming in May

Hurray for Strawberries! The harvest this year has been wonderful! Here are out totals for May:

Meat: 0; we have two birds ready to go but we are waiting for our foster daughter to have her baby before we send them to "freezer camp." In other words, we don't want to traumatize the girl.

Our first two hatchlings

Eggs: 161 or the equivalent of 32 large chicken eggs.  I also sold two of my laying hens for $7.50 each.
Produce:  If you want to see the value of the organic produce you grow it is fun to check out Rodale's Organic Price Report which is updated often. I am using my current farmers market prices as well as the farmers markets in Philadelphia, all prices are for organic.
  • Stawberries: 4lbs. 5 oz. @$4.59/lb.=$19.79 (and this is all in 4 days from 18 everbearing plants not including the 14 that I just planted that won't fruit until July).
  • French Breakfast Radishes: 1 lb. 3 oz. @$3.76/lb.=$4.47
  • Baby Bok Choi: 2.2 oz. @$2.25/lb.= .31, paltry? yes but they bolted
  • Leaf lettuce and spinach: 1lb. 6oz. @Organic sells for $5/lb. at my local farmers market = $6.88
  • Green onion: 1 (didn't even bother pricing this)
  • Swiss Chard: 2.7 oz. @ $2.17/lb. = .37
Estimated value of harvest: $31.82

I was also able to harvest 5 gallons of worm castings. I am not sure the value on it but I traded a bag and two dozen hard boiled and peeled quail eggs to a friend for two gallons of raw milk. I love being able to trade things that I produce for things that I need. I really wish that I had more to trade!

A dozen chicks at a week and a half old, already feathering out.

1 comment:

  1. Nice about trading for raw milk! I wish I could do that...I still need to find someone to buy it from!

    And cool about that price checker. Some things are definitely worth growing at home...my top pick is tomatoes, but also want to try beets. We also have various berry plants (buying berries is so expensive!).

    So I've been reading Nourishing Traditions and love it so much that I'm blogging about it. I'm linking this comment to the new blog, which I'm officially launching in the next couple of days (maybe today if I can get on the ball). Thanks so much for recommending that book to me!

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