“Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating.” --Wendell Berry, The Art of Commonplace Essays
“One of the most important resources that a garden makes available for use, is the gardener's own body. A garden gives the body the dignity of working in its own support. It is a way of rejoining the human race.” --Wendell Berry
If you have been a follower of this blog for any length of time, you probably know that we find great pleasure in trying to grow a garden, working at growing our own food, and have tried our hand in several different ways at trying to do so. We have been very successful at times and other times, if we would have had to survive on the food we grew, we would have starved to death. Literally. We have attempted to grow food items in pots of a variety of sizes with some success and we've attempted to grow things in raised beds and we've mostly had great successes. I was always and am actually still so surprised by the amount of food one can grow in a raised bed in the smallest of yards. I often think that some people don't try to grow food for themselves because they think their location is a huge limiting factor, but that couldn't be any farther from the truth. We grew almost a year of certain food items for our little family in a little 4x8 raised bed. And in a small 4x4 bed, we grew enough herbs for over a year. I think that's amazing.
Our garden spot before any harrowing was done.
And if you've been following this blog, you've probably seen more Wendell Berry than you've wanted to see. And I feel like I've used the above quotes before, but they are too good not to use and reuse. We really love Wendell Berry. Between the both of us, we've read many of Berry's essays, poems, and novels. I'd easily say that in my highly under-read opinion, he is one of the greatest and most important writers of the last fifty or so years. And between Mr. Berry and John Seymour, of England, I am very tempted to unplugged from much of modern society and attempt to become as self-sufficient as we can be here at Otter Creek Farm, but don't worry, we're not there yet. We'll settle for a small garden spot, a few cows, and several chickens for now.
The harrow plow doing it's thing. The soil turned out to be much darker and healthier than we'd anticipated, so we're all pretty excited to see what it can grow.
One of the many benefits from our move to South Georgia was it would provide us with the chance to try our little hands at farming. We have loved our little escapades into urban farming with our four chickens, may they rest in peace, and our raised bed garden spot that grew a little larger each year. Last year, we didn't have much of a chance or desire to grow much of anything. We were in survival mode and the fact that we're all still living, Ford is about to turn three, Mel and I are still married and loving each other, and we are all talking, existing, laughing, and moving forward is the very picture of God's goodness, great mercy, abundant faithfulness, and grace towards and for us. BUT…we are far from that point and we are itching to get our hands dirty and we are already talking about how good our meals are going to be this summer when whatever we plant comes in.
The finished spot. We still need to go through it one more complete time and then it'll be ready for planting.
So, about a week and a half ago, when Mel's dad offered to bring his Case tractor over and help us plow up this year's garden spot, we jumped at the chance. We were planning on starting off small, but after the final run was made with the tractor and plow, our "small" garden spot turned out to be big enough to grow food for several families. He came over and FH and I jumped on and we all made the initial several rows with the tractor, but then after about twenty minutes, he and FH got off and he turned it over to me. I will only say, he made driving and plowing or harrowing up the ground look very, very easy and it is far from that. I had the poor tractor up on two wheels several times and had smoke coming from the exhaust a few times, and did not do that great of an overall job, but I am learning. Slowly. Just remember and know that when you drive by a guy/girl on a tractor and they look like they have it all under control, that you're looking at a highly skilled person in complete control of their work. If you could ever see me drive, then you'd see the opposite.
There is something inherently peaceful and beautiful about driving a tractor and plowing through a piece of land. The dirt smells so good and when you plow up the dirt, you can see all the colors of the dirt and how they contrast with the grass or weeds that once grew above it. I know that sounds odd, but it is true.
We have yet to plant anything and actually we still need to run through the garden one more complete time with the harrow plow to sift through the soil. We are waiting till the ground dries out a little more, but we'll probably do that within the next several days. And then we'll start planting the items we've agreed upon. I know we're going to plant tomatoes, green peppers, squash, zucchini, several types of flowers, onions, potatoes, and maybe some corn. We also have a lot of herbs in mind, but we may need to plant them elsewhere because most herbs need a spot where they get some sun rather than full sun, but we'll see. We have the room for probably 20+ rows of different things. I had originally thought we'd have a 50x50 garden, but what we plowed under is more like a 200x100 foot spot. I'm not sure how much we'll plant or if we'll actually use the whole space, but we'll see. A garden, no matter how small, is a lot of work. It requires you to do something each day and a garden this size is going to be a lot of work. It'll be worth it, but I also don't want it to get out of hand. And I don't want to waste anything that we'll have planted.
It turned into something much larger than I'd originally planned, but I believe it is going make a very fine garden spot.
I'll close for now and we'll keep you updated on our garden. We have a lot plans for our life here at Otter Creek Farm. We love knowing where our food comes from and we love the whole farm to table movement that is slowly becoming quite known. Before we left Macon and before we decided to move to Fitzgerald, we almost accepted a position to help start a farm that would supply several summer camps with fresh food in Northern Alabama, but felt God wanted us here and we hope to take full advantage of this place and our time here. We have little Pecos the Bull and we may soon sell him in order to get a cow to start breeding. We also have a large chicken tractor in the works, mental for now, for us to start a pastured poultry business in the future. And now we have this garden going. It all takes time and it all takes a lot of work and money, but it is well worth it. You always get more from it than you put into it. Or at least that's what it seems like to me.
Happy reading, farming, tractor driving, and hopefully good eating,
DAVID
PS: Let us know if you want to get in on this garden. We could grow you something and then sell it to you later!
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