our first garden.
last summer (2018) we left our rental home in the city and lived for six months on a farm. it's a former dairy farm, surrounded by high-yield fields of corn and wheat. we moved in at the beginning of may, and dave's brother-in-law's father who farms the land kindly prepared us a (huge to us) plot of dirt out back so we could have a go at growing our own food.we'd come from six years of city living, with a few square feet of a deck in terms of outdoor space, on which we managed to kill several basil plants and boxes of lettuce mixes. we did not have a successful track record to say the least, and next to no experience growing anything. we had been dedicated CSA subscribers and farmers market goers in our former urban life, and were super keen to use this opportunity to get our shiny city hands dirty.getting to try something new is a rare gift for most of us these days.
i was initially nervous about the transition from a highly urban lifestyle to one where we were surrounded by fields and a fifteen minute drive to the closest store. the first few months there though honestly felt like we had escaped the rush and gone on a retreat from it all to a quiet and rejuvenating little life.i felt like i hadn't realized how i'd been holding my breath in the city and now, here, i could finally breathe.
and in a way it was our retreat -- i was coming off of about a solid year of a myriad of health problems all through 2017. and though it might sound dramatic to actually put it into words on a page, the garden was a huge part of the healing process for me.in a large, important way for me, the garden saved me.going out in the mornings with a cup of coffee to make the rounds, inspect the lettuces, pinch back a few flowering herbs; spending our evenings after our two year old had gone to bed putting seeds into the dirt, not quite knowing if we were "doing it right" as the sun set. and then enjoying the bounty and plucking sun warmed cherry tomatoes on a sunny august day. it was a meditation for me; a way to be outside, interacting with nature, away from a screen, bending and stretching and clearing my mind and working towards something tangible.
as we were packing up our city apartment at the end of april we went on a shopping spree at urban harvest in toronto and dropped about $100 on seeds. which maybe sounds like a lot, i'm not sure? -- but considering those seeds fed us all summer i'd say it was money well spent, and looking back we weren't even able to use all the seeds we bought. we very frankly told the people at urban harvest we had ZERO idea what we were doing, and they were super helpful in advising us what/how to plant, and which veggies we were already too late in the season to be just starting now. this was pretty helpful to us!we read up a bit, mainly using rodale's book of organic gardening, but at some point you've just got to start, even if you don't have many answers or know what you're doing. how many things in life allow us to do this, really? to just dive in and learn as you go? we tend to want all the answers up front now, don't we? well, i'm usually that way, i want to know i can do it perfectly first try haha, but let me tell you i found it so fun and freeing to just go for it and try and learn as i went. we made tons of mistakes but the feeling you get form growing the food you eat was contagious for us, and learning where we went wrong and trying a new approach next season is part of the fun of it all.
last summer on the farm we grew (from seed) green beans, shelling peas, radishes, beets, carrots, onions, and a frickin ABUNDANCE of lettuce, arugula and cucumbers, tiny cucumber melons and watermelons (!). we bought two tomato plants which did really well, and a variety of herbs, which did just okay. complete failures were spinach (i think we planted it in the wrong place/time), and cauliflower & broccoli (they got holes in the leaves and just never flowered). so pretty good for first timers i think?! -- i basically believe we had a good sunny spot, help with getting amazingly prepared soil, and mostly mother earth did her thing despite our complete lack of knowledge.
i guess i wanted to write this all out so that i first of all have a record of the process of making our first garden -- after all, i've been writing on this blog for about eight years now and it contains so many personal mile markers from our life already. but also because i wanted to share how rewarding and fulfilling it was for me to grow food. i know that probably no one reads blogs these days (i don't even think my mom reads here anymore hah) but they also say you've got to be the change you want to see in the world so here i am tapping away and hitting publish on this blog post, hoping maybe it can inspire just one person to give it a go.my interest in growing food is part the meditative, healing practice i've already described, but honestly a huge part of it for me is also an act of rebellion and an albeit small act of revolution. the savings on our grocery bills soared last summer; we had control over what went onto our vegetables or into the soil (nothing); and we couldn't get much more local than our backyard which allowed us to opt out in a small way from the estimated 15% of carbon emissions that goes into the transportation of our food (never mind the emissions from the actual production of industrial scale growing); also opting out of much of the plastic packaging you find at the grocery store -- these are all things that are hugely important to me as we race towards a completely unsustainable future for the environment and food production. it just feels like a lost human skill, the growing of food, that i felt like i needed to tap into to feel more human in some strange way. there's nothing that feels like pulling something to eat from the ground that you planted there and tended to.we are by no means perfect and these all probably seem like infinitesimally small strides, but my goal is to be able to say that i tried to do my best with what i could, and i'm holding onto my belief that many small acts can add up to make a difference.
i hope this encourages you give it a try, in whatever small way you're able!i think my biggest advice is to plant what you know you use a lot, maybe start small so that you can slowly incorporate it into your busy life and learn deeply about just a few veggies at a time. one of our biggest downfalls was planting too much at once -- this forced us to learn how to preserve (lots of pickling of cucumbers, which we'd never done before!) -- but for some things like our lettuces that you can't do much with, a lot of it had to just go on the compost heap. next time we'll stagger our planting so that we can ensure things don't all come into harvest at once.here are some other resources about growing food that i loved!animal, vegetable, miracle by barbara kingsolver | the omnivore's dilemma by michael pollan | second nature by michael pollan | one magic square by lolo houbein | locavore by sarah elton | digging the city by rhona mcadam
the faroe islands
arriving through thick clouds and our first glimpse of the jagged cliffs right beside us.the sheep eating grass right outside the airport entrance.the time the boat lurched so hard everyone had to grab on and everything went sliding across the floor.that extra large milka chocolate bar i kept in my raincoat pocket.swarms of puffin flying overhead.being soaked to the bone and laughing.huddling under a bus shelter from a hail storm.drinks with new travel buddies and the puffin fridge magnet they bought us.walking home while it's still light at 11:30pm.the stray dog who followed us all through town.haribo gold.how my boots disintegrated.heated floors & grass roofs.the cute canadian woman on our bus in the red coat.the pastures of sheep and their lambs right in the heart of the capital.
two years ago we spent a couple weeks in the faroe islands, and it's stayed with us.one of our favourite trips & favourite places ever.