The Quarter-Acre Farm Read online

  I took some comfort in the vague language therein—who was to say what the residential character was anyway? What were “enhancements,” and which guidelines deemed something appropriate? Vagaries or no, I was quickly coming to understand that growing my own food on my own lot in the quadrant P-12 residential zoning area was not going to be as simple as plowing up the quarter acre and sowing seeds. To both live in the city and grow my own food would require juggling what seemed conflicting requirements of my family, my town, and the needs of the farm.

  So, while assuring my disgruntled spouse that we could still have a nice garden (just a slightly different sort than what we’d been used to) to sit in and sip gin, the two of us sat down with a rough map of our quarter-acre lot and discussed what we could change in our yard.

  I made the first salvo, maintaining that the “residential character” of our neighborhood was varied enough that we could safely ditch the lawn.

  Louis said, “We need the lawn for Sam to run around on.”

  I gave my spouse an incredulous look. Even when Sam was a darling baby, with an incredibly heart-melting baby façade, underneath it all he was actually a serious forty-five-year-old scholar. Thinking of Sam dashing about on the lawn was akin to imagining cats vacuuming. If there were to be any frolicking, it wouldn’t be done by Sam.

  I pointed to the driveway. Louis insisted, “We have to keep it. There are rules about the number of parking spots needed for each house.”

  In a brilliant sidelong offensive I said, “There are no rules governing patios, however.”

  Louis, not to be outflanked, responded, “The fishpond patio has to stay. We eat bagels there on weekends. We barbecue on the back patio, and you can’t touch the patio under the olive tree unless you have a problem with reading books in hammocks on summer afternoons.”

  “Well,” I said, realizing my options were quickly narrowing, “then we’re deep-sixing the nonfood greenery.”

  “Oh?” Louis asked. “Don’t you think that other people would consider that a visual blight?”

  We both paused, thinking the same thought. We didn’t want to upset our neighbors. Because along with a few cats, some rabbits, a duck, and a turtle or two, we also own two geese. And the geese, it turns out, are a problem—a potential neighborly problem, not to mention a personal one. First, we’ve had to fence them in (taking a good chunk out of our arable land) because the geese—a gander named Goosteau and his mate, Jeannette Pepin—are likely to bite anyone who enters their arena. Even though goose beaks look like they’re made of harmless orange rubber, they’re actually sharply serrated. Having a goose bite you is like being chewed on by a pair of pliers. The beaks also make the geese capable of defoliating a Guatemalan rainforest. Given the chance, they would deracinate every plant in our garden within a week.

  Worst of all, our geese are two of the most hideously noisy animals on the face of the planet and that gives the neighbors power over us. Up to that point, our neighbors had been forgiving. I once asked Dorothy, who lived just to the south of us, if the goose honking bothered her. Dorothy, who was ninety-two, (we hoped hard of hearing), and so sweetly polite she’d send a thank you note for a tooth extraction, said, “Oh . . . there are worse noises in the world, dear.”

  The neighbors behind us reported they’d been raised on a farm and the geese made them feel at home. Our neighbors to the north, luckily, had barky dogs, were easy-going, and perhaps because they were schoolteachers, were used to a god-awful din. Yet we knew a single noise complaint from a disgruntled neighbor could force us to get rid of Goosteau and Jeannette because trying to shush geese is like asking night not to fall—it might happen in a few places once a year, but not where I live.

  I quickly agreed with Louis. We had to keep the place looking pretty. The shrubs and flowers would stay if possible, and those that had to come out would be yanked a few at a time.

  “If you really need to get rid of something,” my husband offered, “I could empty the hot tub.”

  I was horrified. “I have arthritis,” I hissed. “That hot tub is medicinal.”

  At an impasse, we decided to look upward for more gardening space. As it was, we had too much shade in our yard. In the front of our property, we had an immense city-owned elm tree. It was draped with so much mistletoe that total strangers made December pilgrimages to our yard for holiday decorations.

  In the back of our house, we had a towering sycamore and two lines of fruit trees. The fruit trees were welcome on the farm, but our neighbors behind us had a row of hackberry trees planted on their fence line that threw a good portion of our backyard into deep afternoon shade. This caused the little fruit trees to grow bent at the waist, yearning toward the sun.

  Louis told me he would prune all but the fruit trees to let in more sun. We started with the sycamore, cutting all the branches from the trunk as high up as Louis could reach with the telescoping tree saw. This gave the tree a leggy-model look—long and lean, with a wild hairdo atop. The tree had just enough canopy left to cast but a lollipop of shade, mostly on our roof in the late afternoon.

  Then I got lucky. When I requested the city trim the mistletoe and dead branches from the street-side tree, they informed me it was slated for removal because of the parasitic mistletoe and its advanced age. I got lucky again when my neighbors to the back cut down all their trees along the fence line to curtail the morning shade it cast in their yard. Within two weeks, not only did my yard’s sunlight allotment go way up but I also had a mountain of mulch in my driveway chipped from the tree the city took down.

  These chips would help me eradicate the lawn. After Sam convinced Louis that he wasn’t going to be kicking a soccer ball around at this late date in his life, I convinced Louis the lawn could go. I covered the insidious Bermuda grass with flattened cardboard boxes and then topped that with a foot of the mulch. If I kept the mulch topped up as it decomposed, the grass would rot underneath and I would be free of the pernicious stuff.

  Now that I had gotten rid of a few trees and the lawn, it was time to start deciding where to plant.

  The trouble was, the soil in my yard was particularly dense clay. In some places the clay seemed to have been amended with plaster of paris, the dirt as hard and as fertile as concrete. I figured the best way to grow vegetables in such situations was in raised beds. I could put good soil in the beds and grow vegetables in places that were once only fit for parking the (now unnecessary) lawn mower.

  A friend of mine gave me some heavy wooden beds that I used in one section of the back yard, but I needed more, and they needed to fit within some rather strangely shaped spaces—between those nonnegotiable patios and trees for instance. I also knew that come next year, or even next season, I might want to move the beds in order to rotate my crops or take advantage of (in the case of winter crops) the shifting light that would be available underneath trees that had lost their autumn leaves.

  I could have planted in plastic burlap bags, and had done so before. While that worked okay, they didn’t look very pretty, and I didn’t like that when the bags weathered into trash within the year, I was throwing something else into the landfill. I needed raised beds that would be mobile, flexible, everlasting and inexpensive, and that wouldn’t “reduce the aesthetic appearance of the neighborhood.”

  Paving stones turned out to be the answer.

  My son Jesse, who had his own apartment on the other side of town, showed up to help with the beds. It wasn’t too long ago that he would have rather cut off a thumb than do yard chores for his mom; but in a gratifying twist, the adolescent Jesse, so thin and pale we called him the translucent child, had grown up to become a gardening-loving Jesse and was strong as a horse to boot.

  Our stones were eighteen-by-eighteen-inch brick-colored concrete, so Jesse dug a trench six to seven inches deep, placed the pavers on their sides to form the walls of the beds, and then set them with dirt. Completing the raised bed, we pounded the outside dirt with the flat end of the fifty-pound pry bar
(I call it “the big nail”) to keep them in place. The dirt inside the bed kept the stones from tipping inward.

  I pointed to where I wanted the other beds to go, and in no time Jesse had worked raised-bed miracles. I was ready for dirt.

  Green Food

  When I was twelve, I made a devil’s food cake and used green food coloring in the batter instead of red. I topped it off with chartreuse frosting.

  I thought my brilliant-green triple-layer cake was spectacular. My father, however, wouldn’t even try it. He said that food needed to look edible as well as taste good for him to eat it, and apparently, a goo-covered green tower didn’t do it for him.

  When it came to food, my father was a particular man, not only about the kind of meals he was served, but also about how much food the family ate. At least within sight of our parents, we kids did not eat more than two cookies at any one time. Seconds were frowned upon.

  When my father refused to eat the cake, my mother must have figured wastefulness was worse than gluttony and told us kids we could eat it instead.

  The whole cake. All of it. At one time.

  I still feel a tinge of euphoria when I think of my sister and brother and me tucking into that green devil’s food. I credit that experience for my certainty that experimentation makes cooking worthwhile. And that’s what many of the “farmer recipes” in this book are—somewhat experimental—because their genesis depends on what is growing in the Quarter Acre Farm.

  Every day, I go into the yard to pick and plan dinner (I admit to a perverse pleasure announcing at each meal where and when the main ingredient of the entree met its doom. I spear a tomato, and holding it aloft, say something ghoulish like, “This was still alive in the side yard while Dad was setting the table!” Louis and Sam roll their eyes). Our meal hinges on whatever ingredients I find ripe and ready. Therefore the recipes change every time I use them because the available ingredients differ every time I cook.

  So, my green-chile chili is sometimes made with green chiles, but sometimes with red chiles, or with cranberry beans instead of pinto beans, or with more onion or less. Tomato soup can be tomato-zucchini soup if there aren’t enough tomatoes, or tomato green-chile soup, or potato-tomato soup or tomato-apricot chutney soup, for that matter. The point is using what tastes good together or even looks good together. And luckily for a farmer, I think brilliant green is gorgeous . . . even in a cake.

  CHAPTER TWO

  DOLLAR FOR DIRT

  “To be a successful farmer one must first know the nature of the soil”

  —EXNOPHON, OECONOMICUS, 400 B.C.

  Our rabbit, Kwan Yin, is extremely friendly, which isn’t a surprise given that Jesse toted her around in a baby pack for six months. Every girl in visual range would descend upon Jesse and Kwan Yin, cooing and petting her, which I believe was Jesse’s intent. When Jesse developed an allergy to rabbits, or perhaps to rabbit care, Kwan Yin’s days of living the life of a bunny pasha were over. She now lives in a pen in our yard along with Hestia, a companion rabbit we purchased solely to ease Kwan Yin’s feelings of abandonment.

  Some people think of rabbits as pets, some as a future meal. Some think they’re both. It is a good thing rabbits are unaware of the dangerous borderland they inhabit. Imagine if every time someone stroked your hair you wondered if she was loving you or plotting to make stew and line her mittens with your pelt.

  My mother once served us kids a rabbit we were fond of—in the guise of chicken. Our bellies full, she sprung the truth on us. It was like being told we’d eaten our Siamese cat, battered and fried. Worse, we’d really enjoyed it.

  While Hestia and Kwan Yin are safe from our appetites, they are not strictly pets. When people ask if we plan to eat our rabbits, I tell them that just as knowing how to fish is a richer gift than a fish, there is something richer than a meal of rabbit. A fishing rabbit, certainly, but in lieu of that, a pooping one.

  I believe that because I have come to understand the importance of dirt. In the past I figured that while good dirt was better than bad dirt, if a plant had enough water and sunshine it would grow just fine even if it were in sand. After all, look at hydroponics.

  Of course, there is more to hydroponics than water, just as there is more to dirt than meets the eye. What is in dirt makes a difference not only to how robustly your crop grows, but also to how it tastes.

  I knew a guy who raised a pig for meat on a little piece of property outside of Casper, Wyoming. The guy had a connection with a bakery wholesaler and got their expired cakes and cookies for free, so he fattened his pig on desserts. When the time came for the pig to be butchered, the meat from the porker was so sweet it was inedible. If there’s a pig heaven, I’m sure the pig is pleased.

  A study by Laura Parker, an agricultural activist in Northern California, showed that the dirt a pig grew up on, and on which grew the food the pig ate, had strong kinships to the flavor of its meat. In fact, a group of tasters could match the meat of the pig to the dirt it was raised on by sniffing various muds from both the pig’s home and other places.

  If dirt can flavor a pig through the eating of greens (or Twinkies), imagine what great dirt does to the flavor of the greens. I know that bad dirt can kill them entirely.

  When I started my year of living off the Quarter Acre Farm, I purchased a mound of soil to fill some of the new raised beds. The soil was heavy, sandy, and closer to beige in color than umber. I filled several raised beds with the stuff and put in my plants. I also started my potatoes in bags using that dirt. The top of the dirt crusted after I watered it, and water ran off or pooled with each subsequent watering. When the dirt finally did absorb water, it became sodden. My potatoes rotted, seeds struggled to break through the crust, the nascent beets didn’t have a chance, and the beans were malnourished.

  Good dirt should have substance while still being fluffy. If you compress a damp handful in your fist, it should retain its shape when you loosen your grip, but just barely. It should be dark in color. It should smell good.

  We no longer buy dirt, but make it ourselves, and rabbit manure is an important ingredient in our soil recipe.

  Rabbit scat is wonder manure, higher in nitrogen than any other manure, with lots of phosphorus to aid in flower and fruit growth, and potassium for overall plant health. Further, it comes in small dry pellets (some call them bunny berries). It doesn’t smell and it’s filled with a good amount of organic matter. Because of this, the manure is not only feeding the plants but also building the soil.

  Further still, a rabbit is productive. For every two tons of dry manure a steer produces a year, a relatively tiny rabbit produces one ton. (Which is why if you can find a rabbit farm raising the critters for pets, food, or fur, they are likely to be more than happy to provide you, gratis, with as many rabbit droppings as you are willing to cart away.) And while you must age steer manure, a rabbit’s manure is “mild” enough that you can apply the stuff directly onto your growing beds. In fact, one can raise earthworms directly under the rabbit hutch. The worms eat the manure and produce castings, which is actually the worm’s manure, which makes it manure squared. All of it is great for the garden.

  Rabbit manure and worm castings are not the only ingredients of our soil recipe. We also collect leaves. Our neighbors have an enormous tree that in the spring and summer provides a small planet’s worth of shade. In the fall the tree releases an impressive number of plate-sized leaves. The neighbors rake them up and put them neatly in the street for collection. I sneak out and take bunches of them to put in the leaf-mold pile.

  I also add leaves to the compost. They are a high-carbon element and offset the high nitrogen component in the bin. For our purposes, it works to think of this as “dry fluffy” offsetting the “heavy smelly.” They are also a good mulch for the garden, holding in moisture and smothering weeds. If you’ve got extra energy, you can shred the leaves to help them break down faster and to allow air and water to percolate through them in the beds.

  I don
’t shred because I don’t have extra energy. However, I’ve heard of some fun ways to do it. One guy shredded his leaves by putting them in windrows in the street and running his mower over them. Someone suggested putting leaves in a garbage can and running a string trimmer in it, much like lowering a hand mixer into chunky soup to make puree. I, boringly, but without using petroleum products, pile the leaves and bide my time until the leaf pile has become crumbly black and smells like rain.

  We also collect coffee grounds for our dirt making. The coffee house a few blocks from the Quarter Acre Farm puts its (voluminous amounts of) used grounds in bags and gives them to customers. It is a happy day when I manage to lug four bags of coffee grounds to my bicycle, and even better when Louis is there with me and I can compel him to carry them home.

  Coffee grounds are in high demand in the spring when thoughts turn to gardening. For a few months I’d see a guy I’ll call “Joe” trying to score coffee grounds; sometimes I’d get them first, sometimes Joe would. I figured we had gardening in common, and I’d often try to start up a conversation as we sprinted for the grounds. But he must have thought I was trying to divert him from his quest, because Joe didn’t just ignore me, he glared. Compost is serious business. Louis said maybe it was more than serious; maybe Joe was using the coffee to mask the odor of a dead body. It was more likely he was masking the odor of his compost.

  The last ingredient of Quarter Acre Farm dirt is kitchen refuse. We collect all peels, trimmings, and old fruits and vegetables in a mini garbage can on the kitchen counter. I used to be more open about my avid composting, and our neighbors would bring us their watermelon rinds to compost, but then an acquaintance showed up at my door one day and presented me with a large black Hefty sack ballooning with gasses from the decomposition of fermenting vegetable muck. Confusing the horror on my face with awe, she assured me she would bring more next month. I managed to thank her but told her I had more than I could handle, actually.