Urban Homesteading Sorrows and Joys

Many urban homesteaders will probably recognize this scenario, that of a promising project turning not-as-planned, and then becoming comical.

A couple of years ago, while doing the Eat Local for One Year project, it occurred to me that instead of spending so much energy trying to grow a European-style diet for myself, I should just learn to eat like people already here had done for centuries. Several of us locavores decided that we would try gathering, processing and eating acorns, the traditional local staple.

I gathered quite a few acorns from my own yard and all around town. I stored them in a number of boxes and baskets all over the kitchen and living room. These places were already filling up fast with winter squashes, bushel baskets of corn, dried herbs, basket fiber and seeds. Soon, various rooms were looking alot like a country store, minus the mini-spotlights and a cheese-sampling table covered with gingham.

I finally did try to make some acorn flour this summer, but I was not too successful. The flour eventually flowed out of my home-made leaching bag so much that yield was tiny. It managed to permanently stain everything in the process, including pyrex. Then it looked like it was moldy (this was hard to tell because of all the staining). After three days of leaching, it didn't taste that good, so I threw it away.

The rest of the acorns continued to sit in their baskets until I mustered up enough courage to try again, or find a friend who would take them all.

This fall, disaster struck again. I smelled something funny in the kitchen and discovered that my last Cinderella pumpkin had rotted, and the pumpkin liquid poured next door, over to a huge basket of acorns.

So, I put about 20 pounds of acorns outside, resolving to sort them out and hose off the basket before everything rotted.

Then it rained!

I just left the basket outside for a few days, and every day took a handful of nuts and threw them on the patio for the squirrels. It wasn't long before they found the basket. Now for the last three days, the fiber animals have been quite entertained watching the squirrels climb into the basket, fiddling with the nuts, and scurrying off to the various hiding places.

Most of the hiding places are in the 40-odd planters I have out on the patio. Every spring I have to pull out 2-3 baby oak trees before refreshing the soil and replanting. This year, despite not being so smart about saving the acorns, I was smart about adding compost. I just put it on top of the pots and I am letting the squirrels do my digging for me.

Arbor day. Done. Isn't that a joy?

Es ist ein Ros' Entsprungen

Behold, a branch is growing, right out of the place where I planted the chayote squash. I guess it is coming back to life after all. There is another branch a'growing on my kitchen counter, of loveliest form and grace, right out of the squash I was to prepare for a Christmas dinner. Right now, it's colonizing the kitchen, wrapping many tendrils around my window coverings and heading towards a light fixture. I must do something.

Lazy Housewife Ronco Gardening

I have added another permanent plant to my garden, one that requires virtually no care or replanting, only an undisturbed place in the garden. First it was bunching onions. Then, to my surprise, I found out that overgrown leeks come up with baby plants all around, so when the leek is harvested (for soup!?) the tiny plants can be replanted. I have a couple of pole bean varieties that come up year after year. I just cut them down for the season and throw some mulch on top.
My scheme was to discover and promote plants that re-seed themselves like crazy, ensuring a steady supply year after year with little effort. The list started with celery, and then branched out with Italian parsley, leeks, amaranth, chard, kale, and my new favorite, fennel.
My fennel experiment last fall turned out so well that I tried to sneak another crop in this spring. Both batches of seeds took forever to germinate, and the plants struggled in the beginning, but I decided that the taste was worth it. The spring plants didn't do too well. They took forever to get going and then went to seed with the heat. I kept them around anyway, enjoying the tasty seeds and watching the birds devour them. One morning, the cat was going bonkers, so I looked out the window and saw about 20 flitty birds perched on a single fennel plant, eating all the seeds in a few moments.
Eventually the tomatoes overtook the fennel plot and I couldn't get through the thicket anyway, so I just left it. This fall, while cleaning, I discovered about a million fennel seedlings. After transplanting tons of the seedlings, I discovered that plenty of fennel bulbs were growing out of the roots of the plants I had harvested earlier. And, like the bunching onions and chard before, seed-saving and even transplanting is a waste of time if the plant just won't die and just won't quit. I get to eat fennel every day, tons of these little bulblets, much more sweet and tender than the best of last year's harvests.
A neighbor commented that my gardens had character, but I think that one of them is just overgrown. If I squint hard enough, there is a large area that looks like a lawn. Look closely and visitors will see that it is just a field of Italian parsley and fennel seedlings, mowed down by munching rodents.
I have decided that the many of our favorite foods through the years are just noxious weeds that also happen to be tasty. Ronco-set-it-and-forget-it growing, self-sowing, self-mowing. An elegant kind of laziness. This gives me more time this winter to curl up with a hot mug of herb tea and browse through all the seed catalogs.