onward and upward

The first lesson in chasing your dreams is to never give up. Sometimes circumstances change, and with that, the path and your means of traveling it from point A to point B may also need to change. Onward and upward, friends!

Remaining in a city with dreams of farming proves challenging. Once you've filled your garden plot for the season, there's only so much weeding and watering that can be done until the plants start growing and you have to thin them, train them up trellises or can start harvesting your small crop. It's discouraging to wake up with the desire to be productive and get a little dirt under your nails when it appears there's little to no work to be done. That's when I look up. You can lay back and gaze up at the cloud-puffed sky, but I'm looking up to the roof.

When the ground is full and you have 20 more tomatoes and some herbs that need a home, and more seeds still sprouting in trays, it's time to think outside the box. Well, in the box, but outside the fence lines. I am fortunate enough to not only have a nice sized garden plot but also have access to a small portion of my building's roof that gets just the right mix of sun and shade. With the desire to dig in the ground is still very much present, it was time for another trip to the store. Soil, manure, perlite, peat moss and marigolds were on the list.

A couple beers and an afternoon later, a container roof garden was ready to grow.

Tomatoes, marigolds, herbs and other flowers potted for the roof garden.
Bamboo stalks were added in the pots to help keep those rowdy tomatoes in line.

ever changing

Dear Friends:

With the nearly three weeks of radio silence here on part of the whole comes some news. In the last two posts, you may have noticed my hinting to some anticipated changes. The changes were big...incredible...exciting! But sadly, are now off the table.

In the works were plans to move out of the city and relocate to a farm in Delaware County. Home would have been a historic cottage built in the 1700s, surrounded by creeks and open land - part of large horse farm where I already spend much of my weekends. The long commute would have been a hit, being 25 miles from work, but I imagine it certainly would have been worth it.

Ideas were sprouting for a large garden - enough to produce extra for a neighborhood farm stand. I was excited to start growing gourds and pumpkins, which could have also been sold at the farm stand. I've been collecting and reading all kinds of books about homesteading and small scale farming, saving images and building plans for potting benches and mobile chicken coops, looking at fire pit designs and lawn furniture. Maybe you know that I want to be a farmer someday, so this was the perfect opportunity to test the waters. It was a chance to get a feel for the work involved, the quality of what I could grow, the value it added to everyday life.

So, I'm disappointed to say that this plan is no longer working out. Much of what has been planted in my current garden was done so in in-ground containers for easy removal and transplanting. It's hard to put down roots when you don't know where you will grow, right? Lesson from the plants.

I was also excited to get back into regular blogging, using what would have been my new living situation and lifestyle as daily inspiration. What's it like to live by heat from firewood in a 1700s stone cottage in the dead of the Pennsylvania winter? What sort of recipes would I have been able to pull together using all the produce from my big, new garden? How successful is raising chickens when there is a fox den on the other side of the yard and two resident guard dogs (don't tell the little one he's only 17 pounds!)? Oh yeah...and how about waking up to gun shots all throughout deer hunting season? Maybe someday I'll know, but for now, it all remains unexplored territory. An unwritten chapter, if you will.      

For now, I'll keep on digging in my current ground, always dreaming about tomorrow.

The Mill House
image from thomaswillcox.blogspot.com

dig in

There was a lot of digging going on today. Most of the garden beds are rich with top soil added over the past few seasons, plus fresh compost from our barrel. The top layer has grown a lot of weeds since we finished gardening late last fall, but the soil is fairly easy to till after breaking through the top layer. After a few minutes of shoveling, turning and raking the soil, it's a happy little place for new plants.

Trips to a few gardening stores this afternoon sent us home with a good mix of plugs and flowers. Normally, most of the seeds would have been started indoors and nearly ready for planting by now, but as I mentioned last time, spring seemed to have a pretty late start all around. Today's haul included cabbage, beans, cucumbers, zucchini, marigolds, onions and some perennials to attract bees and butterflies.

I snapped a couple of pictures just before dark and just before my phone died. It's a little piecemeal, but plants are getting in the ground so that's all that matters. Wheeler dog was a great helper tonight. She does a really good job of keeping the soil warm while she lounges around and supervises the work.

Bamboo is an invasive monster if you have it growing in your yard, but it can be a great asset to the garden. Cut it, give it time to dry out (to avoid having it start new roots when you put the cut poles in the ground), grab a roll of twine and you have some free trellises. The criss-cross trellis was a great support for cucumbers and beans the past two seasons, and will be used for the same again this year. Further down the bed, it also supports hops. A good watering after all the planting was done, and the "kids" are all tucked in for the night.

waking up

It was a slow crawl through winter. We more or less escaped winter for three years here in Philly, and it finally caught up to us. Some might say our luck ran out. I think we were full of luck and finally had a winter we deserve. Snow can be a hassle, and the cold can be unpleasant, but I loved this past winter. I don't understand why people complain so much about seasons. It may not seem like it in the moment, but you know the next one is always on its way. And sure enough, while maybe a little late, spring is here.

Spring's sleepy start had a domino effect, and it wasn't until this past weekend that plants were purchased, holes were dug and the watering can remembered what it was like to be full again. This year's garden is taking a little different turn. It's a focus on longevity and lasting growth. What exactly does that mean? Fruit! Bulbs! Projects!

Settling into their new spaces in the ground are three types of blueberry bushes, two plum trees, irises and Dutch windflowers. And the asparagus! A friend gave me several clumps of asparagus roots (I'm not entirely sure what to call them...they looked like stringy monsters) that are starting to grow! I've never had any luck growing asparagus before, but I'm excited by the success of these old transplants because I love to eat asparagus.

Indoors, the tomatoes are started, there's a mango tree (the seed was a remnant of a recently brewed beer) sprouting in a pot, the mail-order hops are winding their way up a sunny window and there's an evergreen seed bomb that is being willed to life...maybe it'll sprout someday soon.

Overall, things are creeping along, just like all the spring bugs. Seasons are changes, and with this season comes a bit of change to this space. Still the same ideas, the same feeling, just...more. I have dreams of becoming a farmer someday. No definition to the scale of said farming, but I want to be a farmer. That's my American dream - going back to the roots of our skills as human beings and the roots of our country. I can't wait to share the journey.

a sign of the season

It's true, summer hasn't official begun, but it's been a beautiful pre-summer season so far here in the southeastern Pennsylvania. With only about a week of somewhat unpleasant temperatures and more rain than the ground can drink, the backyard garden has been happy, happy, happy.

Peppers growing from seed.

We started our seeds indoors sometime around late March/early April. These included peppers, tomatoes, herbs, broccoli, corn and a few flowers. While the spring weather was still a bit crisp, we planted our pea, bean, lettuce, cabbage, carrot and swiss chard seeds directly into our freshly tilled and compost-rich garden soil. We also planted potatoes and onions, and the garlic from last year was still growing strong. Once the ground was free from the risk of frost, we planted squash, cucumber, sunflower, marigold and other assorted flower seeds, and transplanted a few strawberry plants. The variety of plants growing in the garden this year is unbelievable. I'm certain it's the best year yet. 

We spent a considerable amount of time constructing a taller, sturdier, and dare I say, more visually appealing garden fence this year. So far it's proven a trusty barrier to most of the critters who venture through the backyard. There's an occasional turf war with one very fat groundhog, but overall we seem to be prevailing.  

Our garden, late spring 2013.

I really can't wait until we start collecting the fruits and veggies the garden will be producing this year. And we have big plans for it all, too. There's always an overabundance of produce to share, and while we look forward to continuing to share the products of a season's work with our friends and neighbors, we also are hopefully to save quite a bit. We've never done any preserving or canning, although we have dried some hot peppers and saved them with a vacuum sealer. This year, Ashley is looking forward to making his own tomato sauce. With all of the basil, oregano, garlic, onions and tomatoes sure to come up, that should be a successful project, even if it's done in small batches. I've found a pretty good resource for preserving garlic and I'm excited to try it. And I also want to make my own mozzarella so I can enjoy 100% homegrown and homemade caprese salad - what a perfect summer treat.

Sunday morning reading.

Recently, I've been really interested in brushing up on my homesteading skills. It's my dream to one day have my own small farm - the ideas are varied and who knows, maybe someday a combination of them will become a reality. I have a number of books I flip through from time-to-time to get some tips, and a whole slew more on my Amazon wishlist. If I can manage to read through even half of them, I think I'll have more knowledge and background information than I'll know what to do with.

And as I've found out over the years, and I'm sure many of you have as well, having big ideas is the easy part. Getting excited about them is pretty effortless, too. It's all the hard work and motivation that goes into making them a reality that's sometimes tough. A little self discipline and diligence will hopefully go a long way, and by the end of the season I hope there are plenty of recipes and tips to share!

  

Growing Dinner

We've had all sorts of wonderful rain storms lately - so that stay the entire day, others that roll in and out without warning, some with rumbles of thunder and flashes of lightning. It's doing wonders for my garden.

Last night I cut these beautiful bunches of greens, freshly washed off my a passing storm.

And then I made this delightful chicken Caesar salad. The chicken is from a local farm - free range and no antibiotics. Just cooked with a little olive oil and garlic. Add some halved grape tomatoes, croutons, a little shredded mozzarella (I forgot the shaved parmesan...I'm good at forgetting), and light Caesar dressing. And that's dinner...filling yet light and fresh.

Sunny Days

What a beautiful weekend we had - sunny and 80 degrees both days. I don't spend time in the gym on weekends, but I had plenty of exercise with all of my outdoor activities.

At the farm on Saturday, we moved all of the tools in the barn and made an area to hang all of the horse blankets for the off-season. God knows how many years' worth of dust I spent up during that! Someone also pulled down a tree in front of the barn, so that had to be moved. I picked up the tree trunk and started walking. It was a small-ish tree...maybe 6-8" in diameter and about 12 feet long...but away I went dragging it around the barn, across the top field, through the gate and all the way down into the middle of the farm until I reached the burn pile. No joke, I probably walked a quarter of a mile with that thing. Then I ran up the hill going back to the gate. Dang. I stopped on the way up to admire this hoof print in the ground:

How's your luck, buttercup?

On a farm that's been established for more than 50 years, there are all sorts of treasures to be found. The one I'm really excited about is an old metal bathtub. I said it would be a great planter for a garden, so Jill said "Take it! It's yours!" Wooooohweeee. I decided we should leave it at the farm, clean it up and plant a pretty garden in it. I can't wait to get started on that project. I went to Home Depot yesterday and bought a steel brush, primer and paint. Once we figure out where to put it (and...uh...how to get it there...), I'll fill it partly with mulch and then soil. I've already decided what plants to put in it, too.

After the treasure hunt, another working student and I brought two of the horses to the outdoor arena. Because these horses stay in a herd, they can get pretty antsy when you separate them. Especially when one of the horses being separated is the boss. Make him leave his boys, and he will be sure you know how unhappy he is about it. We pulled slats from the outdoor arena fence to create a quick-escape in case the horses got too antsy. I walked our new boy Jeffrey up and set him to work right away walking over cavalettis and doing figure-eights through cones. He didn't mind wandering around the new environment at all, and enjoyed some extra snack time. When we decided the boys did a good job and we could stop work on a high note, we walked them out the gate, took off their harnesses, and let them run free. Watching a thoroughbred gallop down a hill is a beautiful thing.

See you later, Jeffrey. 

Sunday was no day of rest in my backyard. Mission: build a cat-proof fence. I've been finding some "gifts" left in my vegetable garden by my neighbor's thoughtful cats. Off to Home Depot Ash and I went for all the building materials for a fence and a real-deal gate. Oh yeah...hinges, latch and all! For four hours we worked and worked and worked planting a few new flowers and herbs, pulling weeds, taking down the old fence, putting in posts for the new fence, attaching the new fencing material and finally cleaning up. The last part of the project is building and attaching the gate, but we were running out of daylight and had to stop working for the night. By Wednesday, the garden is going to look fantastic. It already looks so much better. All of the beds were made so neatly this year, and the plants were arranged with adequate spacing and supportive structures. I can't wait until it all fills in. I should have taken some before pictures to do a comparison, but I'll just have to settle for after. I was having an absent-minded moment and could not find the charger with my camera battery of course still in it. How one loses a charger that was last seen plugged into the wall, I will never know. Hopefully I find it tonight.

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Take advantage of all these beautiful spring days!