Composting and planting! You know how I feel about composting, but this wasn’t too bad! I had about 4 days of kitchen scraps to put in. YAY! I also got to use last year’s compost pile for my new plants today! Gotta love payback. It is like harvesting, only dirt and worms. YAY WORMS!
My name is Susan, and this is my dream. You see, I am a country girl at heart, but I live in the big city! That is not going to change for a while. What I really want is a farm that supplies everything our family needs except flour, sugar & meat. But I live in a tight city neighborhood on a small lot where I can see right into my neighbor’s windows from mine. What's a girl to do? Why, start a farm of course! Join my journey to carve out my little farm in the big city.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Day 4 – New Year’s Eve!
Day 3 – Chickens and Education - 12/30/2011
Today was nursery day! I hit up our local nursery, you know the one, expensive but the people there actually KNOW something? That’s the one. It was dead, so I had the garden expert all to myself for a long time. He told me that my best bet for the back yard it so rototill the whole thing. How the heck am I going to do that??? I have an email into my nephew begging for help. It’s worth a shot. Maybe if I just dig up a little bit each day with a shovel, that will work. Where there is a will, there is a way!
I am scrapping the planter box idea. It is WAY too expensive. My plants will just have to fight with the Bermuda grass that I am sure will try to take over again. It will be a battle, but with enough diligence, I am sure we can beat it! My secret weapon may be the chickens!

Back to the nursery: I did buy some plants! I bought a 6 pack salad mix – I am sure Bryan will call them weeds J, regular lettuce, onions, cilantro, parsley and carrot seeds for those awesome Kaleidoscope Carrot mix! Brendan is excited to help me plant those! The nursery didn’t have the blue potatoes. I need to keep looking. I really don’t want to spend $16 for 10 spuds. I don’t have a place for 10 plants! Tomorrow is planting day! Bring it on!
Day 2 – Dreamin’ in Color 12/29/2011

I also showed Bryan pictures of cute little chicks. I told him that my friend had chicks hatch in her classroom. What a great thing to teach the kids! We should do that! :) He laughed and said “That's a great idea! Then you would have your little chicks in your garden to lay eggs! I see what you are doing.” lol I will wear him down. I can see the cracks forming.
Day 1 – Getting Started 12/28/2011
After trimming everything up and composting it all, I took stock of what I have. I measured out my back yard, got out the graph paper and started laying it all out. I have enough space to build four 5' x 8' planter boxes. That will fit a lot of plants! The downside, as I looked stuff up online, is that all of those boxes have to be filled with soil. That get's expensive. I may be planting directly in the earth this year. That means tearing up the grass that is already there. The grass will probably be a constant problem in the garden. I will have to really look at stuff and figure out the best way to do this. We will see....
The Beginning

My best friend growing up lived in the country. I was in town and she lived in a more rural area on two acres of land. I would go out there and play for hours on end. There were cows to feed, trees to climb and fields of weeds to be crawled through. If we were really lucky, we would play with someone who had a horse and go ride! My friend's mom had a garden. I remember weeding it and not enjoying that at all. I did like the fresh fruit though. I much preferred doing stuff with the animals over gardening. I will never forget the day that their cow was slaughtered. I was over for a play date and the butchers came out to do their thing. We were inside for the killing, but went straight out for the rest. That night we had steak for dinner. Surprisingly, I was fascinated by the whole experience! I am a big time animal lover, but I was ok with this. Humm...
Fast forward 30 years and I am a mom living in the big city now. My husband is a self-proclaimed computer geek. He works as a project manager for a large internet company. You have a problem with your computer and he is the one you would call. If there is yard work to be done or a fence to be fixed he could probably find the number of a great contractor for you! Lol It just isn't his thing.
Eight years back we bought the house we are in now. It is a little 4 bedroom 2 bath 1400sqare foot home on a small lot in a neighborhood. When we moved in, the previous owner had a garden in the back yard with the white picket fence with a climbing rose draping over it. It was so cute! There were tomato plants in the garden which were in peak season! YUM! It was so nice. I remember thinking “well that was nice. It won't happen again, but that was nice.” The next year I think I actually put some tomato plants in the ground where the others had been, just to see what would happen. We got tomatoes! Who knew it could be so easy! I started to get hooked.

Now though, I want more. Isn't that always how it is? In looking for ways to save money and eat healthier, I want to make more of my own food and I want to grow more of my own vegetables! This past year I expanded into my front yard flower beds a bit. I figure that I am paying top dollar for this land, it had better be working for me! Gradually, all of my flowers are getting dug up and replaced by something edible. It is nice in the summer and fall, but really, it isn't enough to carry us through the year.
Recently, I started tossing the idea around, of moving up to the local mountains on a couple of acres of land. We can have a large garden, an orchard, a milk cow, chickens, goats.... Now imagine, my poor computer geek hubby at the end of a long day in the office coming home to a wife talking about moving and buying a cow! You can guess how well that went over. Lol He likes the idea of saving money. He LOVES my home cooked from scratch meals. HOWEVER, the idea of increasing his commute, buying property that he is sure we can't afford and or building on said property, and throwing chickens into the mix is just not something that he can wrap his brain around. Now you know, I don't give up easy. If it is something that I really want, and I stick with really wanting it for a LONG time...he might just come around. I gotta give him time to see that this could be awesome.
Recently, I started tossing the idea around, of moving up to the local mountains on a couple of acres of land. We can have a large garden, an orchard, a milk cow, chickens, goats.... Now imagine, my poor computer geek hubby at the end of a long day in the office coming home to a wife talking about moving and buying a cow! You can guess how well that went over. Lol He likes the idea of saving money. He LOVES my home cooked from scratch meals. HOWEVER, the idea of increasing his commute, buying property that he is sure we can't afford and or building on said property, and throwing chickens into the mix is just not something that he can wrap his brain around. Now you know, I don't give up easy. If it is something that I really want, and I stick with really wanting it for a LONG time...he might just come around. I gotta give him time to see that this could be awesome.
In the meantime, here I am, in the big city on my little lot in my little house. What am I to do? Well, I can wish and dream and pine for my mountain farm, or I can make it happen right here right now. Why not? I have land. It isn't much, but it is mine. I can use what I have! My back yard, minus the garden is 30x15. The kids don't play in it, I don't use it. It has become the domain for the dogs. Not that they play in it, mind you. No. Really it is just their bathroom. Seriously, I wish I had a bathroom that big! It is being taken away this year! I am putting a nice white picket fence around all but a 10x3 strip. My garden is expanding! I am going to plant enough food to last us all year! I will can and freeze what we don't use right away. And who says I can't have a couple of hens back there? (ok, besides my husband who is going to be hen pecked until he gives in! Lol) I am know there is a law about roosters and I am pretty sure a cow and goat would not go over too well with the neighbors, but hens are quiet and will take care of pests in the garden! They also produce great fertilizer and lay eggs! Yep, I think a couple of hens might be just the thing this summer.

Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)