Garden Project

Last Winter I spent a lot of time reading Walden and Walden 2 and thinking about food production.  This year I was fortunate enough to help build a small garden which has been an amazing learning experience.  This fall there will be a huge bounty of grapes!

The raspberries have been a blessing.  I think I have harvested 2 pounds so far.  Every day there are more and more.  I am excited to see how much it grows next year.  There are few things nicer than picking a perfectly ripe and flavorful raspberry instead of the flavorless ones at the store.

I was thinking about the raspberry bushes and the tending they received earlier this Spring.  It was maybe an hour of work.  I was at the market and saw that they were selling a handful of organic raspberries for $8 or about what is currently minimum wage.  It occurred to me how backwards our food system has become and how disconnected with the Earth we have become.  How is it more logical to import Raspberries from other States or Countries and to then trade labor credits (money) for the raspberries when the Earth already has a plan to provide Raspberries?  I think the Bible says something to the affect of providing every fruit and seed bearing tree.  What happened to that?

Here is a picture of the Sweet Potato bed!  MMMMM!  It seems that small farms and small scale food production took a dive after the second world war.  At this time Organic farming was replaced with monoculture big scale agriculture.  But this doesn't have to be.  Everyone can reclaim their land and grow their own food.  Humans have done it for thousands of years!  Enough ranting for now let me show you some more of the garden.

This mint patch has grown large enough for the entire neighborhood.  If anyone wants some mint let me know!  It makes an excellent and soothing tea as well as garnishes for beverages.  It is also tasty to snack on while weeding.

The Kale bed is enormous now.  The huge leaves may be chopped up for a salad or cooked as a green.  There is more kale here than in a grocery store!  It is super delicious and fresh and full of nutrients as opposed to what is at the store.  The best part:  it keeps growing!

This is the most beautiful cabbage I have ever seen.  We lost about 20 cabbage plants with fluctuating weather.  All of the Savoy cabbage went to seed.  Luckily there are a bunch still of red cabbages.

To make the best of things the cabbage bed was seeded with Honeydew which should be ready in late August. There are also several other kinds of melon including Watermelon!  I can't wait!

More brassicas, the initial crowns of the broccoli were harvested long ago.  The plants continue growing delicious side shoots.  A truly wonderful plant.  In total there are about 30 plants.  So much broccoli!

I am really looking forward to seeing how this experimental potato bed turns out.

My mouth is watering thinking about the sweet corn.  We are trying the Native American method Three Sisters.  Basically the corn provides a support for the lima beans to grow on and the lima beans put nitrogen in the soil.  The third crop is squash which makes a ground cover to block out the weeds.

The beans are climbing up the corn effortlessly almost as if by the design of some sort of omnipotent being ;)

There are about 50 tomato plants.  We are taking a canning class.  Unless something happens there are going to be at least 1,000 tomatoes.  I think that is incredible.  We planted sauce tomatoes, Cherokee purple and several other varieties along with garlic, basil and onions.

:)  These guys are so cool!  They will start laying soon.

So much lettuce, so tasty!

 Baby squash.  The squash family is terrifying.  There are about 60 plants.  There is going to be a mountain of Zucchini!  I can't wait to eat Zucchini all Winter long!

Celery with melons that will vine up the trellis.

The second Tomato bed :)

Baby Bell Pepper.  Only about 8 pepper plants, that should be enough.

Peaches!  Everything is turning out well and it is a great learning experience.  I keep dreaming about a world where everyone was doing work like this and sharing with one another instead of running around in a rat race.  This is just a small part of the garden that my friend and I have built.  It still amazes me how much two people can accomplish when they work together.  Note: this is not out in the country somewhere but here in Clintonville in two very small yards.  You can accomplish a lot if you set your mind to it!  Hope everyone is having a great Summer and doing good work in your own garden!