Mendolonium

It has been nearly a year since we embarked on an  endeavor to turn our backyard from this into this.  Overall, our effort has been a huge success and I am quite proud that two kids from the ‘burbs (with a baby to watch over and another one on the way) have managed to grow so much in such a small space.  Below, I have put together a retrospective of the past year on our tiny farm.  I hope that this is only the first chapter in a long story towards living a simple, sustainable life. 

What We Grew:

• Tomatoes:  While I aspire to grow all of  my tomatoes from seed (ideally saved from the previous year’s crop) at the moment I am going with seedlings.  We order ours from The Natural Gardening Company, a relatively local organic grower out of Petaluma, California.  Tomatoes were, by far, our most successful plant this past year.  We planted 14 seedlings at the end of April and harvested our last tomatoes at the end of November.  My favorite varieties were “San Marzano” (a small Roma type tomato that was perfect for making sauce), “Celebrity” (a perfect main crop tomato with seeds that were easy to remove), “Green Zebra” (a very sweet tomato perfect for salads).  I didn’t keep records, but I estimate that we harvested over 400 tomatoes.  That was enough tomatoes for all the fresh tomatoes we could want plus over 40 cups of marinara sauce, 6 pints of roasted red pepper spread, 7 pints of salsa, and 12 pints of canned whole tomatoes.  As many tomatoes as that is, it was not quite enough as we are about to run out of sauce, salsa, and canned tomatoes.  This next year I plan to plant around 20 seedlings as well as try overwintering a few plants to try to keep us in tomatoes year round.
• Peppers:  Like the tomatoes, I planted bell pepper (“Ace”, “Purple Beauty”, “Orange Bell”, and “Golden Summer”), Anaheim peppers, and jalapeno pepper seedlings from the Natural Gardening Company.  I planted the peppers in the same bed as the tomatoes.  I underestimated the vigor with which the tomatoes would grow and, unfortunately, there was too much shade and competition for the peppers to produce well.  We did have about six weeks where we had enough peppers to eat a many as we wanted fresh, but I was unable to preserve any for later.  This coming year the peppers will get their own space.  I am considering placing some in a small strip of land on the west side of our house, rather than in our main growing area in the back yard, as it gets very hot in the space which I believe the peppers will enjoy.
• Basil:  I planted basil from seedlings in with the tomatoes and peppers and it did very well.  I harvested the basil continuously and was able to make about 12 cups of pesto to preserve (frozen) as well as about 2 cups dried basil.  This year we will be growing basil from seed.
• Carrots:   Carrots have been our surprise success of the garden.  In early May I simply mixed a bit of carrot seed (“Danvers”, “Scarlet Nantes”, and “Red Cored Chantenay”) with sand (about 1/3 parts seed to 2/3 parts sand) and broadcast it (along with Thomas) in front of the bed of blackberry bushes.  The carrots took off!  We harvested them as needed and then in early fall noticed that ants had begun to “farm” aphids on the greens of the carrots.  At that point we harvested them all (about 15 lbs) and I froze them grated and cut into “coins”.  They were so delicious that we had eaten them all by Christmas.  I have since planted two more “successions” of carrots, one about 2.5 months ago and one about one month ago in the hopes of giving us a continuous supply.
• Parsley:  I  planted three parsley plants this past spring from seedlings in with the blackberries and carrots.  I have harvested parsley as needed as well as preserved about 4 cups dried.
• Potatoes:  We planted 5 lbs of potatoes in late spring and were met with almost complete failure.  While they started off growing well, a week of 100+ temps in May combined with somewhat “unfinished” compost which heated up the soil even further while it finished decomposing caused the potatoes to essentially “bake” in the ground and die an unfortunate death.  About a week ago Thomas and I planted 6 lbs of seed potatoes (“Yukon Gold”, “Rose Gold”, “Sangre”, “Caribe”, and “Yellow Finn”) with the expectation that they will do much better in the cooler weather.  If so, we’ll plant a lot more next year as we sure do love potatoes.
• Zucchini:  I received a free packet of “Round French Zucchini” with a seed order and planted six seeds.  Five plants resulted and went absolutely crazy.  Next year I’ll probably only plant 2 – 3.  We ate a great deal fresh, gave away quite a few, and shredded and preserved about 12 cups for breads and soups.  A piece of zucchini wisdom:  while it is tempting to let them grow to a large size (and they grow very quickly) they were best when harvested at the size of a softball or less.
• Cucumbers:  I planted two “Diva” cucumbers from seed.  They grew easily, although they did need a bit of trellising.  I may plant a variety for pickles this next year as well.  Unless you are planning to make pickles, one or two cucumber plants should be sufficient.
• Cannelloni Beans:  We planted a small patch of cannelloni beans (12 plants) from seed this past summer and got a nominal yeild.  We let the beans dry in on the plants in the pods and then I stored them in glass jars for later use.  I realized that we will need to plant many, many more plants in order to keep us in beans for the year.  I may sacrifice growing them again in order to grow more productive plants.  This is one of those crops that made me realize we  simply cannot grow all the food we eat on our 7500 square food lot.  We also tried growing a crop this winter, however, all the plants were killed off during the first frost. 
• Shallots:  We planted two pounds of shallots this past November.  Their greens are lush and healthy, but we have to wait until late spring to see if they have lived up to my expectations. 
• Peas:  I had never tasted fresh peas before and oh my goodness they are phenomenal!  They are so good I don’t think we could possibly plant enough to satisfy our needs.  We planted three, five foot rows of them this fall and they are going still going strong.  As a bonus they are quite a pretty plant; very well suited to a front yard if you are going for edible and curb appeal.  Two weeks ago Thomas and I planted another two rows, of 14 feet long each.  Hopefully they will make it to maturity before the weather gets too warm. 
• Broccoli:  My most challenging plant so far.  I could not, for the life of me, get my seeds to sprout (I tried three times!) and finally resorted to seedlings.  They were almost immediately attacked by cabbage worms which Jeff, Thomas, and I painstakingly picked off and squished.  Much to my delight all of the little plants formed heads, we harvested three, but then rats!  I believe pest control will continue to be a significant challenge with broccoli, however, it is our favorite vegetable so we shall persevere.
• Parsnips:  I planted these from seed about two and a half months ago and they are slowly growing.  I would really like to make parsnips work as they are sometimes difficult to find at the farmer’s market or even the grocery store and we are quite fond of them. 
• Celery:  I planted celery from seed about two months ago and it is also growing, very slowly.  I have heard many tales about the difficulty of celery but I am giving it a try.  So far, so good.
• Lettuce:  We first grew lettuce from seed this summer.  We picked the coolest and shadiest spot in the garden.  It grew vigorously and didn’t bolt, however, the summer’s heat made it unpleasantly bitter.   We tried again this fall and now have a lovely and tasty little bed of lettuce to pick from. 
• Spinach:  Similarly to the lettuce, we grew spinach from seed in a cool, shady spot this summer only to end up with tough, bitter spinach.  I recently planted another row of seeds and we shall see how they turn out in the winter weather. 
• Raspberries:  We have six raspberry bushes and much to our delight they produced an impressive amount of raspberries last spring and again in the fall considering they were really only four little sticks.  They are currently bare, but last weekend I saw hints of green leaves appear on the canes.  Despite the conventional instructions to plant them in full sun we planted our bushes in part shade due to our ridiculously hot summer weather.  One thing is certain, fresh berries are one of life’s great pleasures and we are going to need a lot more bushes to satisfy our appetites.
• Blackberries:  We have two blackberry bushes that began with only two small canes each.  We only got a handful of blackberries as they only fruit on second year old wood.  Each plant now has about eight long canes and I expect a bumper crop of blackberries this year.
• Blueberries:  We have four blueberry bushes located in part shade in the front yard.  Like the raspberries, we got a surprisingly good yield last year given the bushes diminutive size.  The bushes looked rather sad during the late fall and winter but now sport new clusters of leaves.  And again like the raspberries, we are going to need a lot more bushes to keep us happy.
• Strawberries:  At this point we have planted about 225 strawberry plants (25 last year, 200 this spring) from bareroot strawberry crowns.  The first 25 were planted in our font yard beneath roses.  They have spread, however, I believe that they need more water in order to truly thrive.  They do taste delicious, although, I rarely get to enjoy one as Thomas is madly in love with them.  The 200 we planted this winter are planted primarily in the back yard in raised beds that are well irrigated.  I hope that they will result in enough strawberries to freeze and make jam.
• Peach Tree:  We planted a peach “stick” (“August Pride” in March of last year.  It did not yield any peaches, however, it has tripled in size and is now covered in pink buds.  There is nothing quite like a perfectly tree-ripened peach and I have great hopes for our little tree.
• Orange Tree:  We had a two year old orange tree (“Trovita”) that we planted in the ground last March.  While it formed blossoms this past fall, they all dropped.  We also noticed a continuing problem with excessive leaf drop and some leaf yellowing.  We believe the tree may have an iron deficiency and recently used our first fertilizer in the garden, iron chelate, to hopefully correct the problem.  The tree now has evidence of new leaves and I am keeping my fingers crossed for blossoms this spring. 

What Have We Have Learned:

• Go for it!  A number of people were less than encouraging about the planned scope of our endeavors.  I sometimes had discouraging thoughts myself:  what were two busy, working parents with almost zero gardening experience thinking?  Growing our own food, were we crazy?  But here’s the thing:  seedlings are cheap, seeds are even cheaper.  And all of the inevitable mistakes are valuable learning experiences.  We did as much as our time would allow and I am so glad we listened to ourselves and went all-out.
• Accepting unpredictability is key.  We have had many surprises both successful (a family of lizards lives in our rock pile!) and discouraging (see potatoes above).  Of particular note is that  most gardening books are not very accurate or useful for sustainable gardening in southern California.   The books are simply aren’t written for a place that has weeks of 80+ temps in the winter and absolutely zero rain from April to October.  I found that the garden itself is the best teacher.  One of my key discoveries is that when planting/seeding, I spaced everything closer than the spacing recommended on the seed packet or instructions.  In general, I have taken the recommended spacing and divided it in half with great success.
• Make your garden a pleasant place to work in, whatever that means for you.  For me that meant raised beds and a very organized, almost formal, layout.  For Jeff that meant that while he could have constructed the beds more simply, he mitered all the corners and stained all the wood.  One key aspect that we were right to focus on was the non-growing areas, i.e., play areas for Thomas and the pathways between the beds and trees.   I initially wanted to have pathways that were a bit narrower in order to maximize the available growing area.  Jeff wanted pathways that were a minimum of 3 ft wide to accommodate a wheelbarrow.  Jeff was absolutely right about this one.  I can’t count how many times the wheelbarrow have been up and down the paths delivering compost and giving a certain toddler joy-rides.  I can happily say that I love working in the garden from both a practical and an atheistic standpoint.

What’s Next on the Horizon:

• More Beds:  We currently have about 360 square feet of raised beds plus two fruit trees along with herbs and berries scattered throughout our yard.  We have plans to add at least 200 square feet more of raised beds along with more integration of crops (specifically more berries) into our other landscaping.  In the long term, if we stay in this house, we will likely convert the vast majority of the yard (including the front) to food production. 
• New Crops:  This year we’ll be planting everything from above along with Sweet Corn (“Silver Queen”), Sweet Potatoes, Onions, Leeks, Winter Squash (“Waltham Butternut” and “Burgess Buttercup”), Watermelon (“Sugar Baby”), and more beans (not sure of the varieties yet) for drying.
• Measuring our output.  I would very much like to quantitatively track how much we grow of each crop, ideally by mass.  We’ll see if this actually happens with an infant and a toddler but it is a laudable goal.
• Exploring some more advanced sustainable living projects including:  installing a greywater system, building a wood-fired outdoor oven, beekeeping, and goats.

Now you are thinking that we’re crazy, but you have to admit:  a fresh goat cheese and veggie pizza cooked in a wood-fired outdoor oven sounds like a small slice of paradise.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 12:25 am and is filed under Around the Farm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.