Long-time reader Yolanda in Indiana writes and shares her tale of a wonderful 2023 gardening year. See her previous pictures and story from 2020 here. 

Hi David and all the Goods,

Just wanted to tell you the final total for this year’s garden is 2,072 # of produce from our vegetable garden. Now, there would have been more, if I had brought it ALL in, but we ate and shared and preserved as fast as we could and now after picking some green tomatoes today I’m calling it quits for this year.

Well, that’s not true. We’ll still get the Jerusalem artichokes one day soon. It’s been an amazing year. Here is a list of I think everything we grew:

potatoes
sweet potatoes
sweet corn
flour corn
tomatoes
basil
Swiss chard
kale and collards (which we’ll still be eating for a while)
dry beans (landrace and great northern)
cucumbers
green beans
okra
butternut squash
cantaloupe
watermelons
pole beans
onions
garlic
broccoli
cabbages
eggplant (which did NOT do well)
summer squash (finally beat the vine borers with injections of BT into the stems)
radishes
green, banana and jalapeno peppers
some other herbs and a few flowers
Jerusalem artichokes

I think that’s it. As soon as I send this, I’ll think of something else. We ate it. I canned and froze and dehydrated, gave to the neighbors and nearby family, took a bunch to Church for people to take what they wanted.

I had gotten 3 kinds of seeds from Gone to Seed and grew those. The kale was wildly successful. The cucumbers and dry beans were okay.

I hope all is well with all of you!

Your friend and fan,

Yolanda B

Yolanda writes further:

“… that picture of me in front of the little patch of Bloody Butcher flour corn? Jim shelled that out and we got 45#. That was amazing.”

Excellent work, my gardening sister.

We also enjoy taking lots of pictures of the garden and harvests during the growing season. It’s amazing to look back during winter at how lush and incredible everything was, and it gets you psyched up to do it all again. Yolanda keeps getting better, too.

Her 2020 yields were just over 1,000lbs and she’s doubled that now!

She writes in a final note:

“I was blown away by our harvest. 2 old people. I’m 74 and he’s 77.  I wonder how long we can keep this up. We raised 6 kids. Oldest is 51. Where did the time go?”

I’m only in my forties and I feel that way. I hope for many more years of good harvests for you and Jim, and if we don’t get to meet in this life, I hope we end up with gardening allotments next to each other alongside the streets of gold in eternity!