Our Garden Harvest!
I find August to be such a bittersweet time of year. Just yesterday we had one of the most epic beach days in Saskatoon - incredibly hot, no clouds, and very little wind! Yet the short nights and cool evenings bring a subtle reminder of that four letter 'f' word that's just around the corner.
If you've planted a garden this year, whether big or small, August is such a rewarding month. You've already begun to enjoy the rewards of all the work you put into your garden the past few months, and eagerly await the last of the crops to be harvested.
We didn't plant a lot this year due to space restrictions, but managed to pull off some surprising results! Below are some photos of the harvest from our vertical garden (the prototype of a product we hope to launch next year). We grew some lettuce, beets, strawberries, green beans, and some jalapenos!
Don't be fooled.. we are not expert gardeners! This is the first time I've ever planted anything from seed. As a rookie gardener, I found the process incredibly therapeutic, and a great distraction from actual work! We live in a condo, on the north side which sees only 30 minutes of sun a day at best. The only available place that has enough sunshine is at the shop/warehouse, so we set up a 'quick and dirty' vertical garden to hang off the side of our shipping container. It was fascinating to watch the growth (or death) of our 'little green ones' every day.
The biggest surprise from the garden came from the jalapenos. After returning from a long weekend away, I discovered one of the jalapenos had turned red! I knew other peppers turned red throughout the ripening process, but had never seed a red jalap. It had a delicious and unique sweetness that I haven't tasted before.
I was also surprised how resilient bean plants are - I'm surprised I didn't kill them after all I put them through! Despite my neglect and torture, they still produced a great crop of delicious, tender beans.
This year, I didn't send out as many email updates as I was hoping to. I really don't want to have Lifted Earth become one of 'those companies' who flood your inbox with spam. I'd rather send fewer updates with interesting content that is relevant to those who might be reading. Instead of sending out emails trying to convince you to 'buy buy buy', we spent our time sharing photos of the progress of our garden on our Instagram page.
If you've grown something this past summer using one of our hardware kits, please send us your photos! We'd love to see them and share them on our Facebook/Instagram pages. We recently received this photo, from Carson Thomas from Calgary who is growing some very cute pumpkins!
If you've wanted to pick up one of our hardware kits this year but didn't get the chance, we're hoping that our next sale will make it a bit easier for you. From now until the end of summer, we are dropping all our prices to reflect the 'show special' pricing that we had during our 6-city western Canadian spring tour. I realize that you're not going to plant a garden now, but this will get you one step closer to being ready when spring fever hits next year.
As for a 2018 spring tour, it's still up in the air. I've been rethinking our marketing strategy and would like to keep the cost of our kits at that 'show special' pricing all year long. It's an expensive tour, and eliminating it would allow us to keep our costs down. We'll just have to rely on you telling all your friends about us :):).
Here's to August and eating the fruit (and vegetables) of your labour.
Cheers!
Ryan