Category Archives: Snap-Ed Garden
Fall Changes for the SNAP-Ed Garden
Although the summer is over, the SNAP-Ed garden still has a few more things left growing! We have collard greens, turnips, lettuce, spinach, radishes, of course our parsley and oregano, and just one beet made it through for us.
We had some healthy harvests of tomatoes and peppers make it all the way up until last week, check out how different the garden looks once we took those plants out:
Our Juliet tomato was our biggest producer, totaling about 1, 171 to the very end! Thai basil did very well, too. Almost too well, we had so much we didn’t know what to do with it! 🙂 The Garden Salsa peppers were another great producer with about 150 peppers by the end.
Here are our totals of what we would have spent at the grocery store so far:
Radishes: $41.11
Spinach: $3.13
Red Salad Bowl Lettuce: $45.18
Garden Salsa Pepper: $10.59
Big Bertha Pepper: $62.46
Carmen Pepper: $10.74
Marconi Pepper: $4.95
Juliet Tomatoes: $30.20
Phoenix Tomatoes: $14.12
Bush Goliath Tomatoes: $12.34
Solar Fire Tomatoes: $13.77
Cucumbers: $26.22
Zucchini: $23.29
Green Beans: $6.64
Cantaloupe: $3.98
Oregano: $25.62
Parsley: $3.56
Sweet Basil: $48.10
Thai Basil: $100.00
Total: $507.78
June & July in the SNAP-Ed Garden
We have had some very successful harvests from our SNAP-Ed garden in the past two months! Our tomato cages made from tree branches and twine seemed to hold up for our giant Juliet tomato plant, which was a big producer! Â 
We also had a good turn out from our zucchini, regardless of a squash bug appearance. Our SNAP-Ed educator was able to use the zucchini for multiple of her nutrition classes making zucchini bread, and cooking with the high schoolers making a pasta with zucchini in it!
Our other varieties of tomatoes are coming in quite nicely as well! Green beans and cucumbers were successful this growing season. Our peppers were wonderful, garden salsa peppers, big bertha peppers and carmen peppers were among the few that we have harvested so far! 
We found this guy and had him make it out alive! 🙂 
As mentioned in our previous post about the SNAP-Ed garden, we have been weighing all the produce after each harvest and comparing it to grocery store prices. Below is how much you would be paying at the grocery store for how much produce we’ve grown so far:
Green Beans – 3 lb 11.8 oz – worth $6.63
Zucchini – 11 total – 10 lb 6.3 oz – worth $15.48
Juliet Tomato – 135 total – 8 lb 15.4 oz – worth $31.70
Big Bertha Pepper – 11 total – 2 lb 3.8 oz – worth $10.89
Garden Salsa Pepper – 20 total – 15.2 oz – worth $1.90
Phoenix Tomato – 11 total – 4 lb 4.6 oz – worth $6.44
Marconi Pepper – 1 total – 3.2 oz – worth $0.99
Carmen Pepper – 1 total – 2.2 oz – worth $1.79
Solar Fire Tomato – 8 total – 3lb 4.9 oz – worth $4.96
Bush Goliath Tomato – 5 total – 1 lb 9.0 oz – worth $2.35
Cucumbers – 15 total – 10 lb 5.8 oz – worth $10.35
Oregano – 4.7 oz – worth $17.80
Thai Basil – 10.9 oz – worth $41.28
Sweet Basil – 4.2 oz – worth $15.91
Parsley – 4.7 oz – worth $2.79
Year To Date: $249.44
SNAP-Ed Garden Update
Last week we had our first harvest of red saladbowl lettuce, spinach, and radishes, and finished off the harvest this week. We also planted some transplants including a variety of peppers, tomatoes, parsley, and basil; as well as seeds including green beans, zucchini, and cantaloupe.
The green beans have sprouted, the tomatoes and peppers are growing bigger. We also experimented with branches, and made our own tomato cage!
We made a tomato cage out of branches to show how inexpensive gardening can be if you were to reuse items that are commonly on hand, such as tree branches, tied with some twine at the top.
Like I said, in the past two weeks, we were able to harvest red saladbowl lettuce, spinach, and radishes. We took this harvest, weighed each item, and compared them to grocery store prices. Below is how much you would be paying at the grocery store for how much produce we’ve grown so far:
Radishes – 87 total – worth $23.09 at the grocery store
Spinach – 1 lb 4.8 oz – worth $3.13 at the grocery store
Red Salad Bowl Lettuce – 1 lb 7.5 oz – worth $14.10 at the grocery store
Year to Date: $40.32
One of our SNAP-Ed Nutrition Educators was able to use the spinach and red salad bowl lettuce tossed with the radishes and some added carrots for a tossed salad in one of her SNAP-Ed classes at Inter-Faith Ministries!
Beginning of the SNAP-Ed Garden
This year, Bed #3 of the Demo Garden is in collaboration with the nutrition educators in the SNAP-Ed program. The goal of this bed is to see how much can be grown in a smaller space using SNAP benefits (EBT/formerly “food stamps”), since edible plants and seeds can be purchased with these benefits. The bed is divided in half, with $30 to spend on each half. This includes seeds, transplants, fertilizers, and any trellising that is needed.
In the last week of March, we planted lettuce, spinach, and radishes by seed. Luckily they survived the cold weather we’ve been having!
Into the third week of April, there is some growth and labelling in the garden!
More planting to come next week. The SNAP-Ed nutrition educators are excited to use the produce from the garden for their cooking demonstrations! We will be tracking the harvest yields throughout the summer to show how much a family receiving SNAP benefits could add to their diet through gardening.Â
The Demo Garden Blog 