Tuesday, April 17, 2012

A Farm Girl Without A Farm

 

For the past three years, my family has lived in rentals. At first, it was a motor home 5 minutes from Ben’s job. Then, it was an efficiency apartment close to the beach. After that, we lived in a small house near the beach. At least the little house had a yard. It was there that I finally began my FarmGirl Evolution.

My first garden was a 4 foot by 8 foot raised bed made from reclaimed fencing. And a plastic storage box that I called my “Box O’ Lettuce.” When I ran out of room, I started putting things in whatever I could find- clay pots, 5-gallon buckets, bags of soil, and even a reclaimed kitchen sink. Some things grew (lettuce); some things didn’t (corn. tomatoes. basil). But I was hooked.

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The next year, we expanded the yard by fencing in part of the front yard. In that crowded and busy neighborhood, a fence was a necessity. For some reason, transients flock to the beach. Then, of course, they wander around the neighborhoods. So we doubled the size of the fenced yard and I increased my garden size with another raised bed.

Then I hung some flowerpots on the fence,

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made a compost pile, and started my own seedlings.

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Arugula was a huge hit. It was growing like weeds in the yard. My 3 year old helped me plant. :)

That summer, I finally got the chickens I’d been dreaming about: three gorgeous pullets. A Rhode Island Red and two Americaunas. Oh, how I love my girls. I practiced the deep bedding method in their run, and those three had made a perfectly grass-free, scratched and composted garden plot for me. So we moved the chicken coop and planted potatoes. Then we moved the chicken coop again and planted sunflowers.

But we’ve moved. I thought, at the time, that I may not be around to see my sunflowers bloom. But I planted anyway. That’s what FarmGirls do. We plant, we nurture, we grow; even when we’re not around to reap the harvest.

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