The Citrus Grove

Okay, I will admit… I used to be one of those people who got a little irritated when crops “went missing” from our garden.  Whether it was the opossums helping themselves to our tomatoes, or neighbors plucking from our trees, I got a little upset.  Okay, no… a LOT upset!

I changed my tune though after reading a few books on Urban Farming.  In America, we so often have more food than we can possibly use.  Pair that with our rugged sense of autonomy and entitlement and, well, you get a bad, bad recipe in my opinion.  I’m glad I have the opportunity to untangle that with this experiment.  There will be opossums.  There will likely be gophers and birds and insects in large number!  Hell, I only recently got over my selfish homesteading with the skunks in my home!  But this much is true… there will be neighbors in awe of good things growing, there will be “Freegans” (I know, I have already seen and met a few), I am hoping there will be “Guerilla Gardeners” in abundance, and there will be neighbors in need.

And so, when I saw a young woman walking by our yard this morning, stopping briefly to look around before plucking three lemons from our absolutely over-burdened tree out front, I just smiled and waved and sent her the thumbs up when she blushed as she saw me in the kitchen window.  Hard to know whether she blushed because I was half naked or because she “got caught”.  J  The Farmer McGregor I was in the past might have run for a pellet gun and shouted “GIT OFF’N MAH LAND YEH FREELOADIN’ HIPPY!!”  But these days, I am considering placing a sign out front saying something to the effect of “Need a Lemon, Take a Lemon, Have a Lemon, Leave a Lemon”, and enrolling our trees (including an Apricot, not pictured here, but near the garden shed in previous posts) at this cool website… Neighborhood Fruit.

Lemons, Limes, and Oranges, oh my!

 

 Buddha Hand Citron out on the back of the property

Mineola in the front yard 

But if you happen by, help yourself to some citrus.  We have plenty.  And of course, there will always be zucchini!  Blooming AGAIN in fact. J

Zucchini never goes out of style... or bloom apparently!

I will work on my love of gophers next.  J

Harvest Festivities

We spent a beautiful day yesterday afternoon at Wild Willow Farm and Education Center in Imperial Beach for their 2nd annual Harvest Festival.  Check out their website, they have a lot of really cool, affordable classes on sustainable farming.  You can bet I will be at one in the near future!  Was a lot of fun to see this new CSA in Southern San Diego!  There was a cooking class, arts and crafts for the kids, potluck, farm tour, bonfire and a raffle drawing for some really cool prizes.  We didn't win, but we sure had a lot of fun!

Input / Output

Looking at what has changed already for us, Blue and I noticed something interesting and cool this morning.  It’s trash day in our neighborhood, so as we were hauling our "garbage" out to the curb, we took a look at our production.  Here is what we found…

That’s about a ¼ ratio for trash versus recycle folks!  Once we start composting, which is very much on the skids for the near future, we are hoping to green up that ratio even more.  For now, The City of San Diego picks up green waste for community composting every other week, which is wonderful.  Soon though, we will be keeping all of that great mulch and fertilzer for ourselves to cycle back into our own production. 
It just feels good!  And just look how good we look doing it!  :)

No logs required!

Or electricity for that matter.  :o)  As a strategy for surviving the great Southern California Power Outage of 2011 (7 whole hours, gasp!) we put up the storage shed, correctly this time.  Amazes me how people were so terrified and technology dependent.  Yet another reason to have a garden I suppose... produce in the ground doesn't spoil for lack of refrigeration!  That, and hobbies other than Facebook and SMS texting are just a good idea to have in general.  For me, it was perusing my new edition of The Old Farmer's Almanac, enjoying a little sun in the backyard, and counseling some of my more imaginative friends that no, infact, zombies do not exist and are not going to take over the world due to rolling blackouts in San Diego, and yes, you will survive not seeing True Blood just one night, I promise.  But for next time, come over to my house and I will put you to work.  Gardening keeps zombies and vampires away, it's true!  And if not, we can always shack up in the shed and threaten to beat them with logs like cavemen.  Ugh Ugh!

Shine on Harvest Moon

All the beans and tomato seeds have finally dried to perfection for next year’s planting, several days ahead of the appropriate Harvest Moon.  For reference, moldy fermented tomato pulp is about the worst smell in the world, but after rinsing and drying, it is all worth it.

I catalogued their photos as I went, looked up their varietal names at Tomato Growers Supply Company (dangerous place if you love tomatoes!!), and bought some small envelopes at the local art supply store.  Here, friends, is next year’s hopeful crop so far…

Along with these, I have sent out my requests to several wonderful seed catalogues, including Seed Savers Exchange, ElDorado  and Seeds of Change.  They should be arriving any day now and will make for some great winter (I feel guilty to even use that word in San Diego) planning for next year’s garden.

Blue and I have received our first friendly offer to co-op from a friend living in a small apartment in Mission Valley, so we have already seemingly embarked on our first crop share too.  This will come in very handy for those times when we plan to take a couple days vacation and need a cooperative farm-sitter… and vice versa for our buddies.

Our current planning has us looking into a 100-150 square foot area in the back yard where we would like to place our crops.  For the rest of the yard, we hope to borrow a roto-tiller and purchase or trade for some rich and beautiful amended soil from a friend in the business of Community Supported Agriculture, Jack Ford, our friend at TAJ Farms.  Jack has a wonderful livestock and dairy CSA in Valley Center and provides the most wonderful chicken, turkey, lamb, rabbit and pork you have ever laid eyes on.  The animals are all free range and humanely raised on all organic agriculture grown right on the farm.  Eggs and dairy, the best I have ever tasted.  Look him up and tell him we sent you, and watch for upcoming presentations of his on humane urban farming and agriculture in our community.

More to come soon on our plans for the yard and garden, including soil amendment, rain water collection, composting, and our final mapping out of space and how we intend to rip it all up and get it all ready!