Backyard Betty : Adventures in Urban Farming

sad times in betty-land, big changes ahead

backyardbetty — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:10:16 +0000

sometimes changes can happen so quickly you don’t have time to take everything in before having to deal with the results/consequences.

at the beginning of february, rj and i were faced with too many difficult decisions. our living situation changed and we were unable to renew the lease on our house. this served as the catalyst for rj to go back to school, except because of the budget problems in california, he’s attending school in portland, oregon.

i (betty) moved into a beautiful old house on the other side of the neighborhood. i live with another girl and a very odd cat. the house has a yard, but its occupied largely by a bunch of fruit trees. we have avocado, lemon, plum, cherry, lime, and i think an apple tree. there really isn’t enough sunlight to plant anything here.

however! my friends tara and lindesy decided to plant tara’s backyard. yesterday we spent the day harvesting chard, onions, and collared greens, and transplanting all of the herbs that justin and i had planted. tara’s backyard isn’t as large, but it’ll definitely be more manageable. the backyard that rj and i had was just too much for two people. plus, it had been overgrown for so long that we had a constant battle between us and the weeds.

we had a heck of a time transporting everything yesterday. i had decided that i was quite bitter and angry about the whole situation and i didn’t want to leave anything for the new tenants. we took EVERYTHING. we had to strap down the compost bin to the roof of my friend’s station wagon and drive it the two miles to my new house. i forgot to take a picture. i felt very santa cruz, with the back of the car all loaded down with plants and tools and everything.

i did remember to take two photos of the garden before i left tara’s yesterday. hopefully i’ll remember my camera and take more today.

i’m very sad to leave something that rj and i put so much time and love into, but at the same time, the living situation there was not the best and had the potential to get much, much worse. i’m very happy that tara and lindsey have been so helpful and positive, and the garden will rise again this spring in its full glory. i can’t wait!

-betty

here's about half of the garden at tara's house

here's the herbs transplanted from betty's house to tara's house

two useful resources

backyardbetty — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:37:50 +0000

a few days ago we received in the mail the new edition of the “seed savers exchange” catalog. WHOOPEE!!!! if i vowed to not over-plant my garden this year, the sse catalog will definitely test my commitment to my word.

also, while out to lunch with mom yesterday, i picked up a magazine called “urban farm,” brought to us by the fine people at “hobby farm magazine.” i haven’t even had a chance to read it, but i can’t wait. the cover for spring 2010 has a photo of a hot box, like the one that rj built last year, except theirs seems to NOT kill plants (ours turned out to be an instant death sentence for everything that we tried to grow inside of it… i think it was too hot).

right now, my favorite thing to grow is potatoes, and my favorite potato is the red gold. it is STPUID good. i love how gratifying it is to harvest potatoes – pulling the plant and digging all the tubers out of the ground. i also love carrots and radishes, i think for the same reason. every plant offers a wonderful surprise under the earth’s surface… wow that’s a cheezy thought. (images below courtesy of the seed savers exchange.)

Bred by Ag-Canada at the University of Guelph in 1970. Beautiful reddish orange skin with creamy, golden-yellow, semi-moist flesh. Excellent variety for baking, frying, mashing, steaming or roasting. Good disease resistance, best used fresh, not recommended for extended storage. 90-100 days.

Introduced in 1885. James Vick & Sons Company of Rochester, New York reported in 1924 that St. Valery was "The best and most handsome main crop carrot....Enormously productive. Very desirable for private gardens as well as for markets." Roots are 8-10" long, fine-grained, sweet and excellent for storage. 50-80 days.

Pre-1870s heirloom that is fast becoming rare. Deep red radishes are 6” long and tapered. Flesh is tender, crisp, and mild. 25-30 days.

i can’t wait!
- betty

its like i took a blogging sabbatical or something

backyardbetty — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:08:17 +0000

ok. so i’ve failed terribly at blogging. and maybe at gardening, for that matter. well, i’ve failed more at blogging than gardening.

last year rj and i planted a LOT of things. too many things. we became overrun with beans, tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers. we tried to pawn them off on our friends- who wouldn’t want fresh-from-the-garden produce? surprisingly, not a lot of people. i was disappointed. we had more produce than we knew what to do with, and a lot of it went to waste.

at the end of summer, right when the garden probably needed the most maintenance, i quit my job and got a new one. the new job is pretty spectacular, however, it really cut into a lot of my free time. i had been devoting most of the free time i had to cycling – training for the 2010 race season. add t that a commute that is an hour each way (2 hrs if i ride in)… and then the looming early darkness that happens in the fall… well, the garden literally went to pot.

flash-forward to now: saturday, rj and i took care of pulling out the weeds, digging up dead plants, fertilizing and mulching our beds. we sort of had a bed with annuals and a bed with perennials. the perennial bed looks great – we still have strawberry plants, chard, collared greens, chives, sage, rosemary, parsley, thyme, oregano, and a few volunteer onions. in the annual bed, we turned the soil, put down fertilizer, and covered the ground with a combination of straw and newspaper in preparation for … the next 10 days of rain that is supposed to fall in san francisco.

we didn’t have time to get to the back fence area where the corn stalks are, but maybe the rain will let up this week and we can pull some of that stuff out.

i have some photos to share with everyone so that this post isn’t *too* boring.

don't try to bake a cake when you have the flu

a handfull of early girl tomatoes

our giant pumpkin! not big enough to row across a lake in, but big enough that it was a pain to get out of the garden.

the love of betty's life - her bicycle (the fuji). here it is on the way, with her teammate katy, to the first early bird crit in fremont. which was FUN.

i’ll try and keep on top of updating. my parents got me a camera for christmas so that i could share more photos of what it is that i do all day (manipulating robots…), where i ride, and how the garden is coming along.

goal for this year – plant a little less so that we can eat more without as much work. less waste, more reasonable expectations. yeah!

happy new year,
- betty

its been so long!

backyardbetty — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 23:14:10 +0000

i’ve been having some technical difficulties! rj changed our os from windows to lynux and then the battery for the camera died. we can’t find the charger anywhere!

the garden has been coming along nicely. we are up to our armpits in beans and squash!!!! we picked probably a gallon of beans two weeks ago. rj made spicy dill garlic bean pickles out of them. i wish the camera had battery power so i could take a photo of them. they look beautiful!

a few weeks ago, rj found two bales of hay and a whole bunch of wood on the sidewalk near our house. we brought it all home and he used the hay around the garden as mulch, and used the wood (plus an old door that we found) to make a cold frame to grow plants. i think maybe “cold frame” is a misnomer, as everything in side gets so warm it just kind of dies. currently, though, we have tomatillo and watermelon sprouts inside of it that are doing quite well. hmm, i should probably water those today…

we harvested the last of the onions about a week ago and they really surprised me! they all got fairly large and have been really sweet and wonderful. the strawberries have stopped producing, and we didn’t stay on top of trimming the flowers off of the dill enough so its died back pretty far and i don’t know if we can rescue it. same with our lettuce and spinach. it bolted and we had to tear it out because it got bitter and fiberous. we’ve tried planting new lettuce on two separate occasions and it just keeps dying. we replaced the spinach with collard greens, and those are growing slowly.

we still have loads of chard, and we’ve been pulling up potatoes about once every week. the potatoes are so wonderful! they’re sweet and tender and so so so good. i’ve made roasted potatoes a few times, and last week i made home-made potato chips! those were so good i can’t even begin to describe it.

we have corn that is almost ready to pick, if we can get to it. its totally surrounded by pumpkins and squash, and the pumpkins and squash have really gone to town in the back yard. i keep finding plant tendrils with little green orbs at the end all over the yard.

anyway, i will now attempt to mollify you all with two photos that i found of our garden’s bounty.

these radishes were so sweet, juicy, and spicy! i made bread and butter pickles out of them and rj didn't like that at all.

we picked purple, yellow, and green beans, sweet yellow onions, red gold potatoes, and yellow crook-neck squash

enjoy!

-betty

THIStle

arrghjay — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:56:17 +0000

check out this thistle pic. and this is the smaller of the 2, i cut down! crazy, eh? pretty much our weeds just got a little out of hand in a few areas. i’ve mixed feelings about our weeds, the nasturtiums flower and help retain soil moisture, so whatever. weeds as a cover crop is better than no cover crop, right? well until thistles sneak up. i passed the area off as “weeds” i didn’t really pay attention to what grew there. then all of a sudden it was like woah! we’ve got two HUGE thistles! how’d i miss those for so long. we’ll here’s one of them:

I wanna put it down my pants! yeoow!

Oh yeah! The other thistle was COVERED in afids! I’m afraid that now the thistle is gone the aphids are going to go elsewhere for food. Hopefully that means leaving our yard or attacking plants that we don’t care about and not our garden. Or maybe I got rid of enough of the aphids when I threw the thistle in the compost bin that we won’t have a problem. Betty’s brother showed us pictures of a spot where (almost literally) TONS of ladybugs hang out. I wish it were closer. We’d go scoop up a few handfuls and bring them into our garden just to be safe.

Quick Post

arrghjay — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:16:16 +0000

Yesterday I sifted a big area that gets a bunch of sunlight. I covered the area about 3 sheets thick with newspaper as mulch. After sifting, I planted a 8 watermelon seedlings that I’d grown indoors. Today, I’m starting bell peppers, sunflowers, beets, and spinach. I’m going to start them outdoors and see what happens. I haven’t had any luck with the sunflowers yet, and I’m pretty disappointed. I’ve heard they’re supposed to be really easy, but can’t get one to even germinate. I know beets are supposed to be cool season, but we’ll see how we do. I think that we’re cold enough even when it’s hot that they might work. Ok, that’s all. My friend “Thyme” is borrowing my camera so pictures will have to wait.

interlude

backyardbetty — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 05:44:11 +0000

i know its been a while since there’s been an update. mom makes sure to call me every few days to remind me.

rj fell down the stairs and broke his arm so he hasn’t been quite as handy as usual (hahahaha i made a funny) and my days off have been full of triathlons and trips to the velodrome.

i picked five strawberries a few days ago to take to work. yes, i took photos of them. they were SO GOOD. we have surplus lettuce right now so if anyone wants some, just come on by and we will give you some. i picked some green onions and chopped them up on a falafel the other night. they were so sweet and tender that it blew my mind.

the corn and beans are getting real big. our compost has cured to the point where its ready to use. we got some cedar mulch and have had time to put it around about half of the plants. rj bought a few tomato plants as well. he constructed and indoor sprouting device complete with one of those fluorescent lights that mimic sunlight. we’re growing a bunch of flowers. my gardenia died but the roses are chugging along, and the morning glories, the first thing that i ever planted at this house, are finally starting to climb the fence and bloom. they are a mix of purple and white flowers.

rj keeps planing carrot and radish seeds in the yard but the raccoon keeps digging them up right away. he sprinkled some cayanne pepper on them the other night but the raccoon didn’t seem to care. maybe he likes spicy grubs.

rj and i went to the maker faire today with mom, dad, and brother. i picked up some pamphelets on composting and worms. i also got really stoked on sewing and altering my clothes. i saw how to use a serger. i want to get one sooo badly. i think it’ll change my life. also i have absolutely nowhere to put it but i’ll make it happen. where there’s a will there’s a way, right?

i promise we will post some more photos soon and give a better update. except that rj’s arm is still broken and this week i’m going on an epic bike ride form point arena to booneville to mendocino. and then the track again. huh. maybe i should just stop sleeping. then i’ll have time to do everything that i want to do, right?

-betty

First post!

arrghjay — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:54:14 +0000

Well, this is my first post, and it’s gonna be a quick (and sloppy) one. We have a bunch to do today. The first thing we’re going to do is go to grab some mulch and compost from Golden Gate Park. No word yet on whether or not we’ll be breaking the law, but I honestly don’t think anyone will care. It’s not like they don’t have a TON! We’re also going to go by the garden store (We’ll probably go to Horitica. I wanna check that place out.) to get some more bird netting. That way I can finish putting netting around our bean pole thingy. I also need to structurally reinforce that some how, so that it doesn’t collapse once it has weight to bear. It’s kinda unfortunate…I just planted a bunch of beans and didn’t think they were sprouting until I realized they’re doing fine, except that they were neatly trimmed pretty much level with the soil as soon as they sprouted by F-ING PIGEONS!

Alright that’s it. I apologize for my lack of organization by means of paragraphs. Florida’s education system failed me.

That’s all.

Arrghjay

rain

backyardbetty — Tue, 05 May 2009 07:04:06 +0000

its raining right now! its been raining off and on for the past four days. its may! i don’t understand.

rj worked in the garden for a little while today while i was at work. it was my birthday a few days ago and my brother got me a six-pack of pumpkin plants and one giant pumpkin plant. he says i need to supply the pumpkins for our yearly pumpkin party – my brother, myself, and the children of my parents’ friends (who are also our friends) have been having a pumpkin carving party pretty much every year since we were … eight? that’s almost twenty years! not to give away betty’s age or anything… give or take a little, you know!

anyway, its been too wet to clear any space for them. pumpkins need room to spread out! especially giant ones. i think i’ll plant them in the back, by the corn, where they can get plenty of sun.

rj is also experimenting with indoor-sprouting. he’s got some cucumbers, oregano, basil, tomatoes, birdhouse gourds, and bush beans hanging out in the window of our living room. its been a few days since i checked the tray i planted outside. i hope nothing bad has happened to it! i know that the squash and tomatoes had sprouted. hmm… i should probably take care of it first thing in the morning.

rain, rain go away…

-betty

snakes, asylums, and picnics

backyardbetty — Mon, 04 May 2009 07:19:43 +0000

not much on the gardening front, i suppose. rj has been off of work with a broken jaw so he’s been putting a lot of time into the garden. he made a beautiful brick border for one of the beds, chopped up the fence that fell down into fire wood, and made a really awesome compost pile. he’s pretty much a handyman-superstar.

our plants are all doing really well; i’m going to pick a bunch of the spinich this week to make some spinach soup (that hopefully rj can eat) and i’ve been eating the bib lettuce like nobodys business. the corn is getting bigger exponentially, and our pole beans have sprouted, too! i think the birds are eating them, though. even our seed starting trays have been successful this time around; currently we have bell peppers, tomatoes, basil, and maybe eggplant i forget. our cilantro died, though. i’m not sure what happened to it. april brought it over and i put it on the balcony to get some sunlight and it just turned yellow and floppy. i think it committed suicide.

of course, i have no photos of any of this. i do, however, have photos of a recent trip that i took with the nancy drew ghost appreciation society (a loosely cofigured group consisting of myself and my friends; we wear dresses and hunt ghosts. that’s pretty much the only stipulation. we also like picnics.) we unsuccesfully tried to break into an old navy town called skaggs island, and instead ended up finding the sonoma state hospital. we poked around the property and were generally creeped out by it, before even knowing its awful history. Unfortuately, we didn’t find the cemetary on the hospital grounds.

anyway, i’m sure this is what you’ve all been waiting for: photos of our haunting drive through the countryside.

at skaggs island, we found some snakes. april doesn't really like snakes.

we found a carousel!

a delicious picnic at the scary carousel.

the asylum!!! (dun dun dunnnn)

we didn’t get inside, in case you were wondering. we did find a trophy for “most monstrous” though, in one of the other buildings. go read up on the sonoma state hospital. its freaky.

-betty