Good Things: Becoming an urban farmer

Sweet corn and zucchini (pictured) as well as peppers and tomatoes grow just outside the front door.

I have always wanted to integrate perennials and produce in my gardens. I love flowers but the thought of weeding and mulching and tending for something nice to look at was not enough motivation for me. Walking out the front door and harvesting something to add to our dinner, that's a beautiful thing. We didn't necessarily set out to be farmers. And really, farmer, seems like a stretch. But it's true, we cultivate the land and reap it's harvest.

This year we have enjoyed home-grown zucchini, hot red cherry peppers, Brandywine tomatoes, Big Boy tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, sweet corn, raspberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and one Haralson apple.

We live on a small 50 x 127 lot in a first ring suburb of a major metropolitan area. This is not farm country. But we are using our land to its fullest and enjoying each delectable bite, learning as we go.

I'd never done surgery on a zucchini plant before this season when I had to slice open the stalk and remove zucchini worms (13 of them!) and replant the plant in the hopes it would put down new roots in time for another harvest (we're still waiting expectantly).

Next year we'll hopefully have more apples as the trees will have had another year to mature and we'll be ready to protect the flowers from the caterpillars in the early spring.

We may not plant corn again since it takes up so much space and after two seasons' attempts it seems our extremely sandy, trash pit soil doesn't allow it to grow much past the "knee-high by the fourth of July" point.

After the joy of picking our own strawberries at a farm again this summer I ripped out some weedy grass and added a dozen more plants to the two we already had growing and though strawberry season has long since passed, those plants keep producing beautiful red berries for us to enjoy.

It's work. And sometimes I wonder if it's worth it to add another thing to tend to to our already full roster. But the excitement that my kids show when they see we have two more cantaloupe on the counter from our garden and the taste of that home-grown goodness is unmatched.


Space for more strawberry plants, with the raspberries growing just up the hill along the side of the house.


One of the new plants!