I got my first output from the garden today. 9.8 ounces of carrots.
Since it’s January 20th, obviously I planted the carrots last year. But I am counting them as an output for this year. This makes sense because sometime this fall I will be planting more carrots to harvest next year- so I’ll have an equal input.
Essentially I am using the cash-accounting method to record my input/output.
So I got my first output of the year. Before I had any input- Outstanding!
I was in the garden a few days ago and I noticed that the rain had washed the soil off the tops of a few carrots, so I wanted to pick those. I picked enough carrots for two big people, and one little girl. I ended up boiling the carrots and adding a little bit of brown sugar and butter. (This is a garden blog, not a diet blog!)
Overall, the taste of the carrots was excellent. (even before the brown sugar and butter) This was exactly the amount I wanted to use, so it worked out well.
Carrots can be very sensitive about their weight.
I still have quite a few carrots left in the ground- maybe 7 times the amount I pulled, but I wish I had planted a lot more. We had already pulled some carrots last December, but they were pretty small. I’m hoping to get some good growth from what I’ve left in the ground.
A few caged carrots- the rest are still in their natural habitat.
I have created a chart to track the input/output from the garden (see below). To determine the retail price for these carrots I used the USDA Retail Carrot Price Guide. Yes, there is such thing. Yes, I read it. Tomorrow I will verify the price per pound at Safeway- but I will be comparing with good carrots- not the dried out stuff in the ten pound bag.
Lastly- were these carrots ‘organic’? I’m not sure really- I do use chemicals in my yard, occasionally I spray for bugs (in addition to using BT for cabbage worms) and in the past I used ammonium sulfate as fertilizer. Did any of these chemicals touch the carrots? Probably. But I don’t claim to have an organic garden.
But then again, you don’t really think your veggies are organic- do you?
This is it- I’m already running a huge profit.
The carrots were really good. They are much sweeter than grocery store carrots. Karl also makes a mean carrot soup.