Tag Archives: backyard gardening

some catching up to do.

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OK, ladies and germs, where exactly did February go? I’m still trying to get through January. It doesn’t help that we’ve had almost no winter to speak of. Today my third grader walked home from the bus stop in shirt sleeves – two years ago this week, we had three feet of snow.

At any rate, time has gotten away from me and I haven’t mentioned two new posts of mine over at the Digging Deep Campaign. So if you have some sugar monsters living in your house, or if you need to know more about the types of urban ag floating around our fair city, check it out.

NOW – onto new business:

I have to admit, all the fantastic posters from the Library of Congress archives are a major reason why I’m doing this challenge.

Today in Victory Garden Challenge-land, I now understand why CSAs have startup costs. Also, why fruit is so freaking expensive. Let me elaborate.

I’ve drafted a sidekick to this challenge – a friend who doesn’t have a lot of growing space but is willing to put some sweat equity into my yard to help produce some, well, produce. So we met for coffee, we kvetched about men, we fondled some seed catalogs, and we made a list of all the veg we wanted to grow this year. Some of which I have tried before, some I have not. We made a long list. A daunting list. But, a list that is probably doable, especially if I draft my family as minions. Then I ordered a big chunk of seeds from that list. And then said to myself, “Oh, Lord, what have I done?”

I bought a lot of seeds.

I also have this crazy idea to grow apple trees into a fence (I am not the first person to have this absolutely mental idea). Dude. Good apple trees are expensive. So I must now figure out how to keep the deer far, far away from my babies.

Drumroll, please….

Yes, I have spent $200 on seeds and apple trees. So far.

I figure if things go crazy and we have more than we possibly could manage I could swing a seedling sale at our local coffee shop. Wish me luck!

victory will be mine!

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Victory garden posters are my favorite wartime artwork (though all propaganda posters are pretty fascinating). Unlike many posters which scared you into working harder lest America fall to communism or the Axis powers, posters promoting victory gardens seem to have been generally positive. And the simple, direct slogans, bright colors, and streamlined designs speak to me – I have several modern gardening posters influencing the way I compost and can in my kitchen. There’s something oddly compelling about a space age pickle, no?

I did a double-take while perusing my facebook feed recently, seeing this vintage poster pop up on High Mowing Organic Seeds‘ page:

Beautiful, right? Gorgeous colors, vibrant and healthy fruit and veg, throw some ribbon in there for patriotism, we’re good to go. But the slogan… wow. It may have meant supporting the war effort during WWII, or be sure to help the boys fight the commies, or whatever it meant back then, but today?

“Grow your own – only way to be sure there’s no pesticides!”

“Grow your own – be sure your children won’t sprout a second head!”

“Grow your own – be sure your sprouts, melons, and spinach won’t kill you!”*

Times sure have changed.

Speaking of changing times, how about this one?

I certainly don’t get the impression that it’s my patriotic duty to do much more than support the 1% these days. Thriftiness will get you nowhere when you’re defeating the enemy by shopping.

In the interest of getting back to simpler times when corporations didn’t rule the world, I’m going to attempt to quantify how much money one could save by being thrifty and growing your own. Let’s call it the 2012 foodmeonce Victory Garden Challenge.

Here’s my rules so far:

  • Keep track of how much money I spend on my garden this year (plants, seeds, dirt, mulch, etc. I’m still undecided about labor costs at the moment, but I’ll probably factor that in somehow).
  • Keep track of how much stuff comes out of my garden.
  • Figure out how much money each unit (tomato? onion? you get the idea) cost to grow.
  • Compare to equivalent produce in the grocery store or at the farmers’ markets.
  • Update regularly to prove I’m actually keeping track of everything.
I’m sure this will evolve as I go, but it at the very least will keep me organized in garden planning. And accountable to boot. Here’s my costs for the 2012 garden so far:

Onions and garlic are in the ground, lemongrass is happily sprouting roots to beat the band. I’m optimistic that terrorists won’t come near my backyard. Deer, however, are a different story.

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*Check the FDA food recall site if you don’t believe me.

My yard ate my weedwhacker.

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Weedwacker? Weedwhacker? Spellcheck doesn’t like it either way. I give up.

At any rate, my electrically-powered-hand-tool-that-chops-up-weeds-with-a-string found itself temporarily (I hope) stymied by the weeds it encountered today. My yard has a history of swallowing things, including stone benches, pathways, and most of a clearing in the woods that was once bricked over – the bricks have themselves been weeded over, or at least leaf-molded over. A friend once optimistically described it as a “fairy wonderland,” whereas I usually tell people that it’s like The Secret Garden before Mary and Dickon started hacking at it.

What was solidly an old lady’s flower garden (with admittedly amazing spring bulbs) is slowly being transformed into a more workable space. Don’t get me wrong, I love the six different types of daffodils in April. However, on a 50′x200′ lot, with a house on over half of it, woods on about 1/4 of it, and a sloped front yard, there’s precious little space for gardening. So the bulbs are moving to areas that are less palatable for production, raised beds are going in, and trellises are going up. It’s our third summer here and finally it feels like it’s our yard. It helps that we water the tomatoes with water guns.

Little did I know that I was part of a larger backyard movement – I’ve never lived somewhere that didn’t have a garden in the rear (except for those shifty college apartments). I found You Grow Girl when I bought my first house in 2002, but it’s such an intimate site that it never occurred to me that this was such a growing phenomenon. To me, people always grew plants in their backyards. Strangely, it wasn’t until earlier today, when I viewed Leah, my veghacker friend, talking to local mainstream news figure Bill Flanagan about transforming flower gardens into usable food growing spaces, that I realized that planting seeds and getting out the watering can regularly isn’t something that people just know how to do.  So I’m thankful that my kids have an interest in doing this – even when it means giving up some extra space in the yard or time otherwise spent playing video games. Judging by my two year old’s attempts to string the pea trellises again with the twine I left outside, I think the kids will be just fine.