My kids would be rolling in the mud all day if they could get away with it. To let them scratch the dirt itch and learn something in the process, we planted a garden in our backyard last Spring. Somehow we ended up with about 120 seedlings for things we couldn’t identify (oh, yeah, THAT’S what the labeling stakes were for!). The garden plot was way too small for what we really wanted to plant and eat, and the cilantro went to seed about two days after we put it in the ground, but oh the joy of doing something that felt right.
Once upon a time we had our own backyard orchard, complete with orange, lime, lemon and nectarine trees. Our two apple trees had grafts for 9 different varieties of apples, most of them heirloom varieties, but the squirrels usually beat us to the fruit. The front yard had a cherry tree and a few baby blueberry bushes, and I was in hog heaven, or at least in fruit-growers nirvana. Alas, we moved and our current house in Austin has very little sunlight in the back yard, thanks to several huge old oak trees.
Even a little sunlight, however, is enough to get me to spend $300 (yes, I know) on plants, tools, dirts, fertilizer, hoses, and seeds and to hustle the kids outside for a few weekends of fun in the dirt. We dug, we played, we sprayed each other with the hose, and then we spent weeks leading into months tracking the progress of our sorry little band of sunlight-starved, heat drenched plants. My little Austin locavores in the making have far more stamina than I do for the daily ritual of checking on the status of each little seedling and plant, but my heart brims with joy as they burst through the back door with each day’s update on our family garden.
If you love the idea of the locavore movement and haven’t yet read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, grab a copy from your local book purveyor – it’s well worth your time. The book chronicles one family’s year of trying to eat locally, with primary emphasis on what they can grow on their own family farm.
We might not ever get to harvest much more than some fresh herbs and lettuce from our own tiny back yard vegetable garden, but we still love love love the concept, especially the part about playing in the dirt for a good reason, and one day we’ll have another yard where we can have a much bigger and (hopefully) more productive garden plot.
Until then, we’ll visit the local Austin Farmers’ Market and bring our fabric bags laden with fresh locally and sustainably grown produce HOME.
About BigMama
What a wonderful experience for your kids! I totally identify with not having the space to do what you really want with a garden. When I was growing up it seems houses actually had a decent amount of property. Now builders try to shove as many houses as they can into one small piece of land. Gone are the days when we had big back yards to grow up in.
My mom was a pro at planting gardens in small spaces. She always marked what was what, though.