"living off the fatta' the lan'"

my grandfather was a phenomenal farmer. every year he had fantastic, wildly productive gardens and orchards that provided food for our table and the tables of friends and neighbors as well. i've often hyperbolized the green-ness of his thumb by saying that he could plant a set of keys and grow a Buick but it wouldn't surprise me if he'd actually done it. i was only 12 years old when he died and i never got a chance to really learn what he knew about how to make things grow but i've been learning all i can, jamming things in the dirt, and tending to them like i know Pa would have.

these are pictures of what the yard looked like when we bought the house back in november. i'm told that a previous owner once had beautiful flower gardens but they'd been left unattended for about 10 years and had gotten badly overgrown with noxious weeds and elm saplings.

after lots of time and labor, here's the transformation..

the 5 raised beds are vegetable beds and the wedge-shaped bed is the herb garden.

today marks one month in the ground and we've already begun to enjoy our garden's offerings. we've had fresh broccoli, wonderful fresh salads, and beautiful "china flash" cabbage.

our complete produce lineup so far is: cabbage, broccoli, mesclun mix, lettuce mix, purple peruvian potatoes, kennebec white potatoes, 12 varieties of tomatoes, onions, garlic, purple haze carrots, thai basil, purple basil, regular basil, salad burnette, oregano, rosemary, orange rocket thyme, lemon thyme, traditional thyme, chives, garlic chives, lavender, spearmint, peppermint, chocolate mint, pineapple mint, strawberries, purple bush beans, broadbeans, ornamental gourds, sugar snap peas, snow peas, one watermelon plant, and one beautiful dwarf elberta peach tree.

i'm learning more every day, enjoying the fruits (and vegetables) of my labor, and trying to make Pa proud :-)

updates to come,

~thorns