After only one week away...

As the days of summer get shorter but warmer, after only a week away from the urban farm I came home to a jungle of tomato plants, huge and heavy with long-awaited ripening fruits. The sunflowers had shot up well over my head, and even with daily inspections from my family, a couple of zucchini squash got away and became sizable clubs, perfect for shredding up and baking into chocolate chip zucchini muffins. It's also time to start canning. This year, Italian peppers are the first to go into the boiling water. I look forward to mixing them with olive oil and scooping it all up with a local baguette this winter.

There should be a walkway in the middle!

The mess is worth it for the great veggies this time of year.

Peppers and carrots + garlic and spices + vinegar and olive oil = love!

Knowing I will eat food in the winter that I put away myself helps me look forward to the cold months ahead.

Expand-o-matic

As the summer winds down, I have been thinking about the future of the urban farm. My goal for next year is to produce enough vegetables to both feed my family and sell some at a local farmer's market.

I need more space!

I have a couple of options, in addition to the new raised beds I'm going to add next year...

1) Use land in other people's backyards. This would be the ideal way for me to keep my urban farm truly urban, while also putting someone's abandoned garden to good use or transforming lawn into something productive. Additionally, people who may want a vegetable garden-- but don't want to take care of one-- can enjoy the look of a garden along with eating fresh veggies grown right at home.

It might look something like this: I plant four plots in your back yard. You provide the chemical-free land and water and I do all the planting and maintenance. Two plots I harvest for me and two plots I harvest for you. (If you're interested in this option, please let me know!)

2) Rent or buy land. Buying an acreage is something we have been thinking about as a back-up plan. For now we could use the land for planting veggies and fruits and eventually build a house. I like living in the city, however, so this is an issue to overcome. Another option is renting land (an acre or less) and using it as my urban farm extension.


This week at the urban farm:

As I remove plants from the beds, some of them go to the chickens. In this photo they are enjoying a green bean plant. Most of the late pods I kept for next year's seed, but they got to enjoy eating these extra plants.

For the beds that are finished for the year I am using winter rye as a cover crop. This keeps the soil in place during the fall rains and adds organic material. It also suppresses weeds and just looks nice and lush!

Fall carrots are coming along.

Spinach and lettuce should grow well into the fall. I am planning to get some into the cold frame and see how far into the winter we can have salads.

Attack of the killer tomatoes! The Urban Farm in July.

July has arrived! With the summer solstice behind us and Independence Day ahead, the heat-loving veggies are really starting to show off and grow at amazing rates, the plants putting on both size and fruit. All that hard work in the spring is really starting to pay off.

I didn't realize how much things had changed here at the urban farm until I took a look at some photos from earlier this year. Wow, what a difference a few months makes!

The plants are getting huge and they aren't even full size yet! It's very exciting!

I like to think of myself as neat and tidy-- my family may disagree-- but as the tomatoes grow and grow and grow they are killing my orderly system.

Tomato plants are known for going a little crazy this time of year.

I purchased 10 new tomato cages in 2016 (between $3 and $5 each) to add to the 5 I already owned, but I have approximately 35 tomato plants to support and don't feel like spending the additional money, so I took a stroll around the community garden to see what my more frugal options are. This will be especially important in the future as the urban farm continues to expand.

Homemade cages made from fencing. This was my first choice after buying cages, but the fencing costs almost as much as the pre-made cages. Also, after careful inspection my plants are probably now too big to squeeze into a cage. If I ever feel like shelling out the cash, this is what I will make.

This free option uses limbs from trees and gives a country, old time feel to any garden. It looks like it could work well with this squash plant, but I'm not sure it would work for the giant tomatoes.

This gardener is using a system of poles and strings to hold up his tomatoes. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

On a bike ride this week I ran across this garden using a single stake for each plant. In the end this is the method I chose. Cheap and easy. I'm curious to see if the wood stakes are strong enough to hold up the plant once it is loaded with fruit. If it does work, I'll go to a metal pole (so they don't rot) or just make a few cages each year in order to spread out the costs.

In other news I've started harvesting pounds and pounds of carrots (both red and orange), beets, green beans, peas, and more kohlrabi. I even scored some pie cherries from the community garden's fruit orchard.

Dragon carrots (a free seed sample I received with my order from Jung's).

And freezing raspberries is my new daily chore!

I can't wait to make raspberry ice cream for the 4th of July celebration!