end of summer

it is pretty much the end of summer,
I still have the sorghum and rice to harvest (and I will go into great detail of harvesting and cooking them) , but everything else is done,
the weather is shifting cooler day by day,
it is almost time to start planning the next year's garden,

mostly it time to think about how well I did over the summer,

I planted enough squash plants that should have made several tons of food,
the squash harvest was mainly low harvest from lack of nitrogen and organic matter in the soil (I will fix that before next spring)

I planted lots of dent corn
the main corn crop failed for the same reason the squash did poorly from...

I planted potatoes as well, should have been enough food for the year, but they failed from gophers eating them all due to them being planted in non trappable wood chips...
I did plant a few potatoes in regular dirt here and they did great, so I know what to do next year.

of the 3 things I planted that should have been enough of to live off of for the year for each one, I ended up getting about 1/3 the year of food for one person out of it total,

the lesson here is figure out the soil first and fix it before summer
I know that I did not get the garden plots till late spring, and it was just not enough time, but I still could have done better and know how to in limited time if I need to in the future.

the squash breeding project did not even get a start due to some seeds just not coming up...
but I do have some great crossed squash seeds to continue with another squash project next year,
and they are super tasty  
the things that went well are one of the corn breeding projects,
I am trying to get a frost tolerant corn that will grow in this area during the long spring and not need any irrigation at all, it should grow and finish growing before it gets hot and dries out for the summer if I do it correct, and it looks like the project is very possible and all is good so far (but it will take a few more years to finish) (I already know how to do this with barley and oats, I have the seeds and have tested it in previous years)


breeding a local onion type is seemingly going well,
but I am also growing multiplier onions that should also solve the issue of a type of onion that works well here.

it looks like I am going to get lots of rice and sorghum seeds for next year as well.
it can take a few years of growing from only a seed packet before you can get enough to grow to live on, and I am on my way to getting enough seeds.

so overall I am very happy I tried this experiment in gardening and in life, even if I did not get any extra food or seeds to sell, and am mostly out of money now, but I know how to get a huge surplus next year form the same soil start point.
I might have to go get a normal job over the winter so I can try again next year.
this sort of thing takes a bit of time to start, but once running should work out quite well.

finally, my laptop keyboard is still broken (and appears as if it will just need replaced), and I can't bring myself to post pictures with it tonight in this space limited shack of a room I live in.
I will try to have good pictures tomorrow for all of you, and I will do it in the day when I have access to a table to set it up on.