I have a confession to make. As we started visiting farms last year, getting to know our food and our farmers, the three of us would often ponder if we could live the agricultural life. During these farm visits, we’d leave the city behind physically and mentally, embracing the wonders of the agricultural landscape and the self-reliance we witnessed at work.
In these conversations we would talk about the people we just visited, step into their shoes and imagine the commitments they have made to be sustainable farmers. Sure, we got to know growers who had lived on a farm their whole lives. But we also met people who had left careers and homes in the city to pursue their vision of “getting back to the land” and running a business in the process.
So, as we drove back home, the conversation would drift to what each of us found remarkable about the experience, and how our perspective on sustainability had expanded.
It was the question of sustainability that turned up again and again. After all, we became locavores as an experiment in reducing our ecological footprint – something we felt we were accomplishing as consumers. But could we grow our own food? We had no gardening experience whatsoever, and we weren’t seriously considering buying a farm, but we were curious about whether we could even begin to feed ourselves.
From Nothin’ to Somethin’
During the second month of our journey, we received the gift of a tomato plant from my parents. We put it in a pot and added some pepper plants to our potted collection. A good first step, but still what you might call just a bit conservative. During the last ten months we have harvested about 4 pounds of tomatoes, a few dozen peppers and close to 200 limes (not a typo).
However, as winter faded this year, we knew we had to step up our gardening efforts, perhaps even putting something into the ground. We had sketched out garden plans, but couldn’t see ourselves building raised beds in the middle of our small backyard – after all, we’re total newbies…what if we failed miserably? After discarding a couple of alternatives, Maggie asked “Why don’t we remove some small plants and bushes from the landscaped areas and replace them with veggies?”
She was referring to the raised decorative landscaping we have along our property line, a design gesture left behind by a previous owner. It hadn’t occurred to us before, but it had a lot of things going for it: the beds were built up, there were different varieties of plants of mixed sizes, and some of them were already looking bad. I was prepared to pull everything out until Maggie asked me to take it slow. She didn’t want me undoing all the landscaping until we got a feel for how things were growing there, “Wait until the next seeds are ready to go in,” she added. So thoughtful!
So we went seed shopping and decided on a few basics, all organic and heirloom varieties: yellow squash, black beauty zucchini, radishes, contender beans, and some Juliet tomato transplants we bought at the farmers’ market. When we got home, we figured out the placements fairly quickly.
On the day after Michelle Obama and a team of 5th graders broke ground on the White House Kitchen Garden, we did so on our own. The prep work took the longest, as we removed a portion of the soil and conditioned it with organic humus and leaf mold compost. We also combed through it to remove grass and weeds, always a challenge in clay. At the end of the day, the seeds were in the ground and all we could do was hope that something…anything…would grow.
Five days later, the miracle of life was made visible. Hard, dry seeds that had gone into the ground days before had transformed, sending tender green shoots out to claim their right to sunlight. The radishes were first, quickly followed by the contender bush beans. The next day squash and zucchini leaves were unfolding before our eyes. Our tomato plants were thriving as well, extending their long willowy branches out and upward.
It’s now been just over two weeks. The tiny, lime-green shoots we first spotted are now taking on the characteristics of their species. The thick, broad leaves of the squash are displayed in opposing pairs of smooth and jagged sets. The beans’ pointed leaves are expanding like extended kites over their slight stems. The radishes’ clover-like leaves are perched on signature red stems that lead one’s eyes into the rich soil, where the roots are waiting to be dug out by hunting, novice fingers in just a couple of weeks.
Even the tomato plants are flourishing. The original plant from last year has grown several inches, while revealing 4 tomatoes the size of grapes. The Juliet transplants have also grown as much, forming beautiful, oblong cherry tomatoes in the last few days.
And the joy we’ve experienced in bringing this garden about has been a surprise. I realize some of you have probably been gardening for years, and the relatively small size and scope of our garden may pale in comparison to your own, but we are looking forward to the first harvest with much anticipation. It’s safe to say the we’ve got “the bug,” and have lost some of the fear and trepidation that we started with…usually the challenge for any new endeavor.
Now at last, we’ll get to indulge momentarily in that fantasy that had us imagining life on the farm…one vegetable at a time!
View more photos on our gallery.
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