The Modern Victory Garden

My garden is not just a hobby.   I definitely enjoy it and find great pleasure in the time I spend in the garden, but I have a definite purpose to what I do.   To put it simply, the primary objective is to feed this household with all of our vegetable needs and as much of our fruit as is possible, and to do it in a fashion that is economical, significantly less reliant on fossil fuels, and produces food that is nutrient dense and of a quality surpassing that which I could acquire even from local suppliers.   The challenge is to do this in my “spare” time and within the limiting factors of my property and location.   Specifically, tall trees surround our property so only a portion of our land receives adequate sun exposure for most vegetables.   In addition, I live in a coastal/maritime climate that is cool and frequently cloudy.   The combination of these two factors means that most vegetables grow more slowly here than they usually do in other areas that receive more sun exposure and warmth.   On the plus side though, our mild winters allow us to grow and harvest frost-hardy crops virtually year-round and our abundant rainfall through much of the year means that irrigation efforts are generally minimal and mostly confined to the brief dry period we get in late summer (Mid July through September).   

Since I garden with purpose, I find it useful to periodically take stock on how I am doing.   Reflecting on what is working (and what is not) helps me to make useful adjustments and often challenges me to increase my efforts in certain areas.   I have been thinking about a couple of topics lately but one in particular has been occupying my focus more than others – that being the goal of achieving greater independence from fossil fuels in the food production garden.  

The abundance of fossil fuels is declining and demand globally continues to climb.   As a result, everything made with oil has been (and will continue to) cost more.   Many things in my garden are products of oil – the PVC pipe I use for grow tunnel supports and the plastic sheeting that I drape over them, the hose I use to water my garden with, and even the waterproof gloves I love to wear in the garden – all are examples of how fossil fuels are present in my garden.   I know I will not erase oil from my life or my garden, but I do try to consciously make decisions to keep my fossil fuel dependence as low as I can practically make it.   To the extent I purchase an oil based product, I want it to be something that will be durable and long lasting as opposed to a repetitive input to the garden production system.   Making those kinds of decisions and efforts translate into economic savings and ultimately a more sustainable food production garden.    

The things I think I am doing reasonably well at to keep my fossil fuel dependence minimized in the garden include:

• I almost entirely use manual tools in my garden.   The tools I regularly use include a sturdy and well-engineered broad fork (for aerating and loosening the soil), a shovel, garden spade, garden fork, pitchfork, a hoe, a rake, a three-pronged cultivator, and a scuffle hoe.   I have acquired over the years some really well made tools and I take good care of them.
• I don’t use chemical fertilizers that come from fossil fuels and I don’t use oil based pesticides or herbicides in my garden either.
• I reuse and recycle garden pots and planters.   My friends and co-workers often bring me pots to reuse such that I am actually heavy on inventory of them at the moment.   Occasionally my supply gets depleted but I have found that all I have to do is mention I could use some and people start bring them to me in great number.
• I use my PVC hoops, plastic sheeting, and bird netting over and over again.   When not in use, I carefully store them away to keep them from unnecessary sun exposure that causes deterioration.

Things I need to improve on (or have recently started changing) include:

• I still use a gas powered weed whacker about four times a year to clean up and mow down the weeds and grass in the garden walkways.   It’s really the last vestige of gas powered tools left in my garden tool arsenal that gets regular use.   The amount of walkway area makes it rather impractical (and expensive) to try and put down weed barriers and mulches.   Mowing and trimming truly is the simplest and least fussy option with my raised boxed edged beds and larger garden size.   Consequently, I am planning to look into purchasing a narrow (small) push reel mower to keep the main walkway areas mowed down and then when my current gas powered trimmer finally dies (as they always eventually do) I will purchase an electric trimmer to use on a more limited basis to trim up against the edges of the beds periodically.   I need to learn how to properly sharpen the blade of a reel type mower though if I go this route.   A knowledge and skill I currently do not have.
• I use plastic starter cell packs to start seeds in.   I rinse and reuse them a few times, but they are thin plastic, which cracks easily, and often I only get two uses out of them before they must be discarded.   About a month ago, I purchased a basic soil block maker and am intending to begin using it with my next seed starting efforts.   I plan to just repot the seedlings into larger recycled pots  so I did not purchase anything but a basic medium sized block maker (cost about $35).   I have a learning curve ahead of me with this, but I think it will be ultimately more economical and certainly less resource wasteful.
• I need to work harder at keeping my purchased and transported inputs for the garden as minimal as possible and to find local (preferably free!) sources for items I do need.   Less packaging and less transportation means less fossil fuel dependence.   Food crops are generally heavy feeders and deplete the soil if a replenishment program is not constantly employed.   Compost is a great amendment but rarely of high enough quality to provide all that food crops need nutritionally without the addition of other fertilizers.   I periodically remineralize the garden soil with the applications of rock minerals which provides slow release phosphorus and potassium, but the garden still requires applications of nitrogen sources on a regular basis.  Recognizing this, I am going to begin a separate compost bin operation to gather up pure (not mixed with bedding) chicken poop from my hens and try and create a more concentrated composted chicken manure product and to do it in such a way that I don’t lose too much nitrogen via leaching and off gassing.   That will require using a more closed container approach for this particular composting.   Not sure what I will repurpose for that project, but I am on the hunt for something that will serve the purpose. 

I have other topics that I have been thinking about recently, but I will save them for some future blog post.   Do you think about this topic in the context of your vegetable garden and do you have things you are working on as a consequence?  

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

For those of you who have ventured beyond my blog page and have visited the home page of this site, you know that I am committed to spreading the word that personal food production gardening should not be relegated to a “charming memory” from our past but that it indeed has a place in our modern lives.   I realize how hard it can be for many people to incorporate a traditional garden in their lives, because houses are being placed on increasingly smaller lots and many people live in apartments and condominiums.   While those situations truly pose significant challenges for those that would also have a kitchen garden in their lives, it is not impossible.   For example, many communities have pea patches that may be rented or other community garden areas that are worth looking into.   Often it takes a while to get a plot assigned but if the alternative is to not garden at all, then I would suggest the wait is worth it.   The bottom line is, if you want it, there are ways to have a food production garden in your life – even in densely populated urban areas.   For those of us lucky enough to have a little more land to work with, there are still many challenges in having a working food production garden in our everyday lives.   I sincerely believe though that the rewards far outweigh the time demands and other inconveniences that come with a modern victory garden.   This is something I feel quite strongly about.                          

You might ask … why?   Why is producing more of our own food that important in a world that has corporations and transportation systems established for the sole purpose of bringing us anything we desire, when we desire it, and in forms that take all the labor out of preparation?   I would answer that it is for those very reasons that we should be motivated to grow as much as we can for ourselves, and to the extent we cannot produce everything ourselves, to seek local and more sustainable sources for the rest of what we need.   Those are alarming words to the economic engine that literally banks on our complacency and love affair with “Franken Food” and “food on demand”.   It is tantamount to a revolution to seriously talk about a more simple approach to feeding ourselves because (to put it simply) there is very little money to be made from growing food close to home, processing it as minimally as possible, and eating more seasonally.         

Make no mistake; the corporate food system has an extremely big stake in keeping us out of the business of producing more of our own food.   It extracts money from us at each step - from the genetically patented seeds that are not permitted to be saved – to the healthcare system that rakes in money from our many health related issues caused by a substandard diet.   If you doubt me on this, just count how many commercials for pharmaceuticals to treat diabetes, high cholesterol, weight problems, and depression are run on a network television station between 5pm and 7pm.   It is a very lucrative business.   In between the patented seeds and our declining health, there is money to be made from factory farming, bioengineering, fertilizer manufacturing, pesticide manufacturing, food engineering, manufacturing and processing, cold storage and warehousing, advertising, packaging, shipping, retailing, and (to add insult to grievous injury) the production of vitamin supplements to make up for the lack of nutrition in today’s highly processed food.   Is it any wonder that amidst all this seeming abundance that we literally hunger for food… real food?                           

There are other reasons to strive for greater production of our own food.   I personally consider food security a high motivator.   Producing more of our own food reduces the financial impacts of significant price increases caused by fossil fuel constraints, commercial crop failures, and geopolitical events (war and trade disagreements for example).   The need to mitigate rising food prices looks like it may become even more critical in 2011 as current indicators point to significant supply decreases and dramatic food price increases.                 

If those reasons were not compelling enough for you, I would add one last reason to include personal food production in your every day life – its good for body and soul.   The garden is a great place to reconnect with what is important in life and to literally stay "grounded", and the food we reap from it can be nutritionally much more dense and healthful than our alternative sources - so long as we remember to tend to the soil’s good health as well.            

I challenge all of us to declare greater independence from corporate food systems, reduce our reliance on fossil fuels to bring food to the table, and cultivate a healthier and more fulfilling life.   Are you up for the challenge?

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

"While I could quite easily just buy vegetables elsewhere, the point is I choose not to."                                   

Each of us has our reasons and goals for growing a food production garden.   At a minimum it can provide a tasty supplement of some fresh and organic food to augment mostly purchased items from other sources.   At the other end of the spectrum, some aspire to provide completely for their own subsistence - using their property to provide vegetables, fruits, as well as dairy, eggs, and even meat or fish.   Amazingly enough, many people have achieved good success with this loftier goal of providing entirely for themselves even on modest parcels of property in urban and suburban settings.   A classic example of this is the Dervaes family in Pasadena California.   While I am always inspired by stories of people like the Dervaes who take this to the ultimate edge of self sufficiency – I know for me personally that it is more than I am able (or willing) to do given my other obligations and property limitations.   Similarly, I know there are many people who look at what I do with my garden and consider it “too much” for what they are willing or able to fit into their lives.   There is a wide range of possibilities of how far to take your food production gardening efforts and no matter what end of the spectrum we choose to take it – it is all good!   What matters most is that we each make the determination of the role we want our Modern Victory Gardens to have in our lives and then pursue that goal with vigor!                    

For me, the objectives are pretty straightforward.   I work to produce 100% of my family’s vegetable needs; a significant portion of our fruit needs; and supplement everything else where possible (such as herbs, dried beans, etc).   Recently, I have added to my goals the production of 100% of our eggs as well.   Because I want my garden to produce all of our vegetable needs and more, I tend to view my Modern Victory Garden as a micro farm.   I want to maximize food production from the foot print of property available to me.   This means that I tend to plant intensively spaced; put in larger plantings of any given crop; practice aggressive season extension and succession planting to maximize the amount of fresh harvests available during the entirety of the year; and preserve the over abundance of summer to feed us during the low production periods of winter and early spring.   I monitor how things are going and when something is not producing I make appropriate changes.   Since a large part of our daily food supply comes from the garden, I tend to take it all a little more seriously than others might.   While I could quite easily just buy vegetables elsewhere, the point is I choose not to.   The taste, nutrition, and overall economy of the effort provide constant reward for that commitment.   If anything, I feel compelled to produce even more - so that we may reduce the amount of meat we consume on a regular basis and replace it instead with an even greater amount of plant based foods.   I have no intention of becoming a vegetarian, but I think we would be well served to lower the overall amount of meat in our diet.                  

Have you thought about your gardening goals? Are you on track to meet them?

In early January I received an email from Sheila De La Rosa editor of Oregon Home magazine asking if I would be willing to be interviewed by Margaret Foley for a segment in their regular Trade Secrets series – this particular article to be focused on growing victory gardens.   I am always interested in providing encouragement to others to grow more of their own food, so of course I was pleased to participate as requested.   A few weeks ago I received several copies of the April-May 2010 issue in the mail, which has the final article as completed in it.

You can read the complete article HERE.                                    

I am constantly amazed at the amount of daily traffic and interest this blog and website gets and it just keeps growing over time.   The interest level in food production gardening has definitely spiked up with the enduring recession and heightened awareness of how our daily "living" choices impact the environment and our personal economics.                        

A working kitchen garden has been a part of our household's routine since before we were even married - which is saying something because we will be celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary on May 18, 2010!   While food production gardening has been part of our lives for a long time, the focus with the garden has changed over the past six years, in that I now actively work to provide 100% of our annual vegetable needs from the garden.   Before that time I did not put nearly as much planning into it and had less lofty ambitions (at least as far as meeting our family's food supply needs are concerned).   I think a greater amount of people are now ready to explore that same shift in focus or are ready to up their "garden game" to a new level for the sake of sustainable and frugal good living.   While the drivers of that increased attention are unfortunate and dire for those that are facing job loss or reduced incomes, it certainly has been positive in that people are discovering (or rediscovering) the real satisfaction that comes from having a greater involvement with working to provide one of the essential elements of daily living - food.                                                

I fervently hope that this surge of interest is long-lived and not just a passing fad.   How does your food production garden fit into your life and what are your personal goals related to it?

2009 ended for us on a rather sad note.   We had to have our elderly dog (Spotty) put down on New Years Eve day.   She was extremely deaf, mostly blind, and was in failing health.   She took a significant turn for the worse several days ago and it was time to ease her suffering.   She was almost 13 years old and lived a good life.   I know we made the right decision, but it does not make it any easier.          

(Spotty 1997 – 2009 / Photo taken in 2003)           

I spent most of New Years day working on The Modern Victory Garden site – wrapping up 2009 and getting things set up for 2010.   Undertook a little reorganization so that the seed starting info, harvest tally, preserving tally, and garden economics data are now under one web page link for each year.   The 2009 Garden Season info link (on the side menu bar to the right) is now finalized with a last update to the garden economics page.   The calculated net economic benefit of my garden for 2009 (values after annualized costs) was $258.62.   The detail of costs and calculated benefits is included on the page.   I have already done the vast majority of my expenditures for the 2010 garden season purchasing seed, seed potatoes (necessary this year because of the late blight infection last year), raspberry plants, fertilizers, and germinating soil mix.   I always do a big purchase process at the beginning of the season and then make very little expenditures through the remainder of the year.   The purchases combined with what I have on hand generally get me through the season.   The only other purchases to be made (that I am aware of!) is for some additional half whiskey barrels and potting soil for the greenhouse.                            

The 2010 Garden Season info link is largely just set up with empty templates for future entries with the exception of the Seed Starting page, which is complete.   I changed this up a bit for 2010 by putting all of the seed starting activity on the schedule – both indoor starting and direct seeding.   It provides a more comprehensive schedule this way and also gives a more complete inventory of what I am growing in the given year.                

The kale and Chinese cabbage starts (in the shop under grow lights) are coming along nicely.   The lettuce seedlings had really poor germination (older seed).   I threw away the remaining lettuce seeds as a result and will just wait until the fresh seed order arrives to get the early spring lettuces started.   I also got the main bed of root crops (parsnips and carrots) covered with a grow tunnel last weekend.   The primary reason to cover it is to keep my visiting rabbit out of the bed.   Up till now he has only been  bothering the back beds of carrots and has not found this main winter root crop planting area.   However, it was only a matter of time before he did, so I wanted to get it protected.   Covering the bed also provides the benefit of keeping the soil warmer so it is easier to dig after periods of hard freezes. 

In just a few short weeks, it will be time to get the seed starting process underway for 2010.   In the meantime, I am hoping to get started on my winter shop project to make some planting jigs.