Growing food and time for the family

Today has been about pondering. what am I this year in my community? How will it look? I dont' know, but there is something I do know about. Growing food and bringing food security to our local community. I do know the importance of growing our own food and making sure my family is well fed and knows where their food comes from. I see my beautiful front yard that has evolved from lava rock to perennial beds and now to food. life is good because of it.

I grew previously on 800 sq ft of borrowed land from the City of Portland's community gardens. It broke my heart to leave this group of growers, but somehow in the past 8 years I got really far away from my home. I still had to go somewhere to grow and harvest my food. I still had to take time from my family to do so. Some where in the mist of getting a college degree, starting up my own business "Your backyard farmer" and raising a family, I ran out of time. My decision this year to bring my food home was about time and in the process brought me home. Freeing up more time and eating directly from by yard.

Making mine edible, slowly has been evolving into a place for the neighbors to ask questions and give them permission to make a change at home, removing some of their grass and planting a small vegetable garden. Out front! Sometimes being the example, pays off.. Just doing what I love and being passionate around the beauty of food and what it does for a community.

I am just one person in the mist of a food movement. Urban backyard farming or in my case front yard farming is a step, I can take towards becoming "more" sustainable on my own property.

My girls and their coop

I go back to last October when I got my first batch of chickens only one day old and needing so much to stay alive. We raised eight named them all and of the batch I got one girl, the only one named a boys name. Fred became a lone chicken so off I went and decided to get her a flock. In March, I brought home 3 more and so far so good I have all girls. We introduced them slowly and Fred seem to except them as hers. This is good! The new girls names are Princess fluff butt, Stevie and Pooter. I chose all heavy breeds and layers. So as of now we have one New Hampshire red, two Buff orphingtons and one light brahma. I love having chickens, Fred has now started laying and is giving one egg a day. What a comical group they are together.

Mad vegetable skills

Ok! I am taking the leap, writing about my edible yard and how it is ever changing. Each day I go out I find that another perennial is being removed making room for more edibles. Today I am working my small space into big production. 120 sq ft total but boy is the food packed in, I find my mad vegetable growing skills working it.

Today I interplanted my peas with cucumber, my tomatoes with leafy, My peppers with spinach. Each using up different nutrients and keeping with the leaf to fruit, root to shoot crop rotation. This is quite the experiment but I think it is going to work. As the leafy is eaten up it will give way to the tomatoes to take over this area. A second planting of leafy is in another row. The peas will finish up about the time the cucumbers come on and the spinach will be gone as soon as the heat sets in giving way for the peppers to fully develop. I am still counting on the spring rains to do my watering, but can't wait for the summer heat to come on. Stay tuned to