Critters are getting a lot of my produce, like this once-lovely avocado.

I think I will declare my 2014 urban garden in southern California a federal disaster area. I am going to attribute my low harvests last year to drought, climate change, critters, and being sick a lot of the year (colds, flu, minor infections). It all took away from the garden.

You cannot reap what you do not sow. And if I did sow something, it seemed like the critters got it. Bird, squirrels, possums, rats–they all enjoyed my garden more than I did.

It is January and only one of my chickens is laying. The other four girls are “off-line,” enjoying the very liberal vacation and retirement package that we offer them.

See the comb on this hen? It is pale and shrunken in comparison to that of the one laying hen. A couple of the girls are starting to get red, swollen combs, so they should begin laying soon. I hope.

Let’s get right to the bad news. Fruit harvest was 86 lbs. Vegetable harvest was a pathetic 81 lbs. That makes the total produce harvest 167 lbs. PATHETIC! But egg production was 530 eggs last year, which is not bad. We gave away eggs in the spring, but had to actually BUY eggs this winter, four dozen. Lazy hens.

Now before you Midwesterners and New Englanders laugh your heads off, I should point out that my urban farm sits on a mere 4500 square feet of land, and our 1700 sq ft house, 3-car garage, driveway, sidewalks, deck area, and chicken coop occupy most of that space. I have crammed dwarf and semi-dwarf fruit trees around the perimeter, with four main veggie beds and a couple of extra little plots here and there, wherever there is room and a bit of sunshine. I have even grown potatoes in Gro-pots in the driveway, but my husband dismantled them this year due to extreme unsightliness.

Citrus makes up a lot of our harvest, but my orange tree hardly bloomed at all last year, giving us very few oranges this year.

To sum up, here is an approximation of my 2014 harvest.

FRUIT
Apples — 0
Asian Pears — 8 lbs
Apricots — 4 lbs
Avocados — 8 lbs
Lemons — 20 lbs
Limes — 8 lbs
Nectarines — 0
Oranges — 30 lbs
Peaches — 10 lbs
Plums — 0
Strawberries– 0 (in all fairness, I ate all of the strawberries right off the plants without weighing)

VEGETABLES
Artichokes — 6 lbs
Bell Peppers–10 lbs
Chard — 4 lbs
Collards — 5 lbs (I produced a lot more than that but fed them to the chickens without weighing)
Green Onions– 1 lb
Kale — 1 lb
Komatsuna — 1 lb
Lettuce — 2 lbs
Onions — 33 lbs
Snow peas — 3 lbs
Summer squash- 4 lbs
Winter squash 10 lbs

Now doesn’t that make you feel better about your own gardening efforts? Some of you get more produce than that in one WEEK.

But hope springs eternal in the heart of a gardener, and I am already planning and planting my 2015 garden. The radishes and snow peas have sprouted. I have transplants growing of red cabbage, cauliflower, and arugula. I have kale, collards, artichokes, arugula, green onions, radishes and bell peppers growing as holdovers from 2014. So wish me luck. The year 2015 can’t possibly be as bad as 2014 was. Can it?

We always seem to have kale and collards on hand. The critters don’t seem to eat those, just the peas, green beans, tomatoes, etc.