Keeping Track of Your Food Production

To be completely honest, I had never thought about keeping track of the food production on our homestead. If if I HAD thought about it, I'm not sure I would have thought it was a good idea. But the more I read about it, and the more I want to save money and feed my family healthy, the more I thought it might be a good thing!

At the beginning of this year, I started to keep track of our egg production. It actually has been interesting to see the weather effect production; cold, snow, rain... And I'm sure it will be even more helpful in predicting what our production will be next year.

So, I thought, it might also actually be good to weigh produce from the garden. I have seen the Dervaes Family keep track of all their produce. I think it is awesome that they have produced over 6000 lbs of food in a year. I want to know how much I produce this year, THEN see if I can "up it" next year! I know, I like to do silly thing like that! I like to challenge myself and it really is fun for me!

Then I was talking to a friend, Andrew Odom, and he is getting a scale too. I thought, maybe I wasn't the only one wanting to do something like this, this year. So, that is why I thought I might bring it up today~

I actually had a postal scale. It measures pounds to a little over 10 lbs. And it shows ounces up to 0.00, which will give me a pretty precise reading. I had pulled that out, and have been measuring the amount of lettuce that we have got out of the garden so far. So far, that is our only product out of the garden... And boy! Is it producing! It's awesome! I have also been weighing our milk produced from our new goat! Looking at milk in a jar is different then actually SEEING the amount on a scale!

Another cool thing, is I can weight my lettuce, then figure how much I have just saved by spending $1 on seeds and how much at organic prices I would have to pay for what I have just produced! AMAZING! So far on JUST lettuce, I have saved over $12. And there is MORE in my garden to cut!!! And we are FAR from the lettuce being done!

I have been keeping track of all of this info in a notebook. You could also keep track on your computer.

I keep track of other info in my notebook too. Like what I am feed the animals, any crazy dips in temperature, extra "treats" that they get, etc. Tomorrow, I will show you my farm notebook!

A great way to get yourself a scale, if you don't already have one is Amazon.com. If you do your searches with Swagbucks, it could be free! Also you could enter the giveaway here for $50 towards anything on CSN.com. And you could get you a very nice scale!

How many of you have a scale? DO you keep track of what is produced on your farm/ homestead? Would you like to start?