Our usual routine on Sundays is to go out for breakfast and then get our grocery shopping for the week done. This past Sunday was no different. While my wife did the shopping at Wal Mart I sat and had a cup of coffee at the food court. I noticed that a lot of women had canning jars in their carts. One woman had nothing but but canning jars. She must at least 10 dozen. The more I thought about it, I noticed there were a lot more fruit and veggie stands around town too. All home grown stuff. We have also had an Amish woman setting up a stand in the parking lot of an out of business store. So I was wondering, how was the harvest in your areas this year?
Your routine sounds a lot like ours, we go to breakfast and then to Lowe's, it seems like there is always something we need from there...the grocery store trip is later in the day. I don't know if the harvest was better but I do know that more people have started growing their own veggies the last couple of years. I read an article last summer that the number of home veggie gardeners was higher than it had been since the Victory gardens during WWII. A lot is due to the ecoli and salmonella scares in the commercially grown or produced food supply.
I remember the article Toni mentions. We've had a decent crop but nothing special, and the trend of growing your own veggies hasn't spread to my neighbourhood yet. I hope it will, since I feel a bit odd being the only one who grow things to eat besides berries and fruit.
I think a lot of our new produce is due to the weather we have had. June was hot and dry but July was cooler than normal and we got rain when the plants needed it. Aug was cooler and wetter than normal. So far Sept has been normal. Not only has this affected gardens, but nut trees etc have huge crops on them . I have several black walnut trees and they are loaded as are the hickory and oak trees.
Our weather wasn't very good on crops of any kind this year around here. Way too hot and long periods of no rain, a couple of inches every 5 weeks just doesn't help them all that much. My pecan trees started dropping empty, black hulls back in June. I have seen a few good looking ones still on the tree and haven't heard the thud, roll and thud of them hitting the roof, rolling down and dropping on my car as much this month as in the last 3 months so I might get a few next month.
our weather was/is lousy for crops this year The food stands are out but the prices???? and at the local market? usually can get 20 ears of corn for a dollar now they are .19 cents a peice my garden just vanished I only had about 3 tomato plants a couple of squash 12 cornplants and planted 20 potato mounds and nothing it was very cool and wet this year with only about 2 dozen days of heat
We had cooler than normal temps and above average rain for most of the summer, but my garden did very well. The beans weren't the best this year though. None of my friends grow any veggies except for a few tomato plants. Why should they have to when I keep giving them my surplus!! LOL
We sure haven't had summer here. much cooler then other years.even farmers are late on crops. Mine are late due to family appt's. and happenings. We have a bunch of green toms still waiting for them to turn red.
I read that the seed companies had more orders this year than ever before because so many more people were growing gardens. I think it is great many people were trying gardens for the first time. Seems more people were successful if people are buying canning jars. :-D At least one person
I was surprised when I noticed that my six nearest neighbors had veggie gardens this summer. Different folks had different reasons, some economic, some philosophical I guess. In early Spring we had so much rain, the pollinators had a lot of trouble getting their job done so we had late starts but wound up with decent harvests, I think. It didn't get really hot until mid August. At the farm stands, the quality has been fantastic but crazy high prices. Not sure why.
