Farming in St. Paul

Have I told you about our community garden plot? Basically, Martha wants to grow vegetables but our back garden is too shaded because of the shed and the big oak tree beside the shed, neither of which is going anywhere. In addition to this we will be tearing up the back garden in the course of the construction project we are going forward with this summer. Therefore if we want to farm we need to farm somewhere else. Hence the plot we now own for the next 12 months. It's 12ft x 15ft and is about half a mile from our house. It is one of about 50 plots all fenced in together to keep out rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, deer, bears, sharks, snakes... It's boarded on one side by the street and on the other by the railroad. I'd say the total size of the community garden is no more than an acre or so. I'm new to agriculture so I am probably off by a few fractions of an acre. It's a highly productive thin sliver of land in the middle of the city. If you live in Europe then this concept is the exact same as owning an allotment. In Europe I believe that people who live in homes with no gardens would be your typical allotment owners.

It's nice to have control over the price of our food. Nothing worse than being subjected to price hikes on stuff like red bell peppers due to poor crop yields in California. It is also nice to know where our food comes from and to eat it with pride knowing that "I grew this from a feckin' seed." The point of this story is to tell you that I actually enjoy turning over soil with a shovel, building a chicken wire fence around the perimeter, being part of something that involves patience and careful attention to detail. I'm an urban farmer!

Now let's get to the youngest urban farmer of them all, Elise. We brought her down to the plot on Monday evening after I got home from work. I worked on the fence while Martha turned the soil and got it ready for planting. Sitting close to us in the muck was Elise absolutely lost in thought and completely content to dig at the soil with a rock. It was like watching a kid play with Lego. I've never see her that focused on anything. Pretty soon I had the fence up and without provocation or suggestion she began to pull stones out of the soil, stumble to the fence and drop the stones on the other side of it. She continued this for a few more minutes but then discovered that muck didn't taste too bad so she ate a few handfuls. We put a stop to that pretty quick. From time to time she would rub her face with the palms of her hands which were filthy. It wasn't long before she looked like she'd been down a coal mine.

We went back to the plot again last night. Martha planted about a dozen tomato plants. I finished the fence. Elise worked on the muck with her new shovel (a tea spoon) which understandably led to confusion as she began to spoon the muck into her mouth. I quickly replaced the spoon with a garden trowel which is half her size! She dug away with that for a while and continued the important work of stone removal. We'll go back tonight to plant some more stuff.