What Urban Homesteading means to me

The events of the past week have caused me to reflect on my life-path, how I got to here, and why. And of course, I have been thinking about all the folks who have helped me along the way, and those people who were the most influential.
I have written here about my food heritage, and have a topic category for it, and you can read about some of it here. But today I feel I need to explain it a bit more deeply, and more personally, than before.

I had mentioned that my parents and other ancestors had a huge impact on my life as a homesteader, but my parents also scraped together enough money to send me to a private Christian school. It was there I met several teachers who made quite an impact on my life, both spiritually and vocationally.

I first met Jim Schrader in 1971, my freshman year. His English class sat next to my band class in morning chapel, and we became friends. I was in his English class during my sophomore year, and in two of his classes my Junior year, advanced comp and creative writing.

Jim (he insisted we call him by his first name) had an interesting life. He was a pre-med student at Valparaiso University, but one day, while he was swimming, he felt exhausted and almost drowned. They discovered that he had cancer. So, instead of going to med school, he decided to use the short life that was allotted to him as a high school teacher.

He was the first Urban Homesteader that I knew. He and a group of friends and family had moved into an old and derelict part of downtown St. Louis. Many of the hippies of the time ended up at Lafayette Square, buying and refurbishing fine old abandoned homes and building a community. It was full of children, gardens, walking streets, and lots of wheat germ brownies. Jim talked often of his commitment to community, non-violence and vegetarianism. He was building a very good life from a bombed-out mess that the inner-city had become.

For Jim, urban homesteading wasn't about rejecting, resisting or revolting. It was about restoring, renewing and respecting. And of course, re-planting and a bit of rewiring!

I'll never forget the last day I saw him. We had heard that he had entered the hospital again. I remembered the Bible verse about visiting people in the hospital when they were sick, so I convinced a friend to drive into the inner city hospital with me. When we got there, he was all ready for us, and asked us how the summer was going. I mentioned that I had applied to several engineering colleges. Jim had such a crestfallen look on his face, as if his star pupil had just purchased a one-way ticket to the military-industrial complex. I assured him that I wouldn't let engineering corrupt me.

A few weeks later, school started, and Jim wasn't there. He died a couple of weeks later. I wrote the eulogy for the school newspaper. I continued to be mad at God for a long time over this, refusing to write or create or allow myself to be involved in any type of religion.

Eventually I finished school and got a job in industry, but I could never forget Jim's words about how we should live. I kept finding myself pulled towards the homesteading community. I joined a local food co-op for vegetarian staples and started a little garden in my backyard. Throughout this process, the WWJD question was never "what would Jules do?", it was always about what I thought Jim would do.

And, I asked myself that often. Is what I'm doing what I should be doing? Shouldn't I not worry so much about how many clothes I have? What would Jim think about that? What would Jim think about Whole foods, Real Goods, solar panels? Would he be surprised and pleased at all the changes in the homesteading movement since the 70's?

A few years ago, as I was re-evaluating where I wanted to take my life, I had a dream about Jim. In the dream, he had died, and had continued to live his life in an other-universe, working as a physician. I had an opportunity to visit his new homestead. He lived in a larger, more modern home, and it had solar panels and a rain barrel. There was a small greenhouse in the back yard, with lush greenery, all in pots. I was surprised to see that he had chosen to purchase a home with a patio for the backyard. He told me that we do good things with what we have, even if it is just with one small pot. I realized that one could do good work in the outside world, and still be doing good work on the urban homestead. I woke up refreshed, and certain that Jim would probably approve of my urban homestead, even with its never-ending patio and livestock ordinances.

Last week I also sported that crest-fallen look, as the promise of the homesteading movement seemed to crumble before me. I have recovered since then, and I am confident in our ability to move forward towards the dreams that Jim had pioneered, and to create a more just, secure, refreshed, renewed and peaceful world.

Here's an old photo of Jim here.

I AM an Urban Homesteader

I don't usually count and weigh my produce. I eat it.
But, now that we are keeping score, here's some of what I am up to:

1 blackberry vine
2 grape vines
3 berry bushes
4 fruit trees
5 plots golden sunchokes
6 varieties of winter squash (red kuri, butternut, buttercup, baby pam pumpkin, Cinderella pumpkin, acorn)
7 varieties of summer squash (zucchini, yellow, pattypan, caserta, cocozelle, tatumi, round)
8 fava bean plants
9 colors of chard (white, cream, pink, green, lemon yellow, gold, orange, red, magenta)
10 sources of rescued spinning fiber (2 Ragamuffins, 2 Siberian Huskies, 1 German Shepard mix, 3 Spaniel mixes, 1 samoyed, 1 angora rabbit)
11 kinds of hot pepper (Bhut jolokia, serrano, jalapeno, giant cayenne, cayenne, poblano, NewMex Joe E. Parker, Espanola, Anaheim, bird, black pearl)
12 months of veggies!
No partridge. No pear tree. (yet)

End of this year's Locavore Challenge

Today is the last day of the 2010 Locavore challenge, and we have already eaten the last meal. I feel it is going out with a whimper. I wasn't able to convince all that many of my friends to join me in the locavore way. Sure, there are plenty of gardeners at the community garden who are local-friendly, but not as much as the folks closer to Ojai. This has been a tough year for many of my friends and others in my community, and I think that has alot to do with why more people didn't sign up.
I'll continue to be a locavore, at least where fruits and veggies are concerned. Every season, my own fruit crops and trading network grow. I am still having trouble getting local meat.
Tonight's plans were cancelled last-minute, and I didn't have much else besides the wonderful veggies from the garden. I stopped in at the garden earlier in the day and enjoyed the sunny weather and the company of other hardy friends, and harvested a huge basket of greens and sunchokes. We decided to stop by Fresh and Easy for some fish. There, we ran into the evening sale, and picked up some non-local salmon. I baked the salmon and served it topped with sauteed leeks, celery, fennel and serrano peppers I had harvested earlier. I served it with Osaka purple mustard cooked in kumquat marmalade with mandarin oranges. We enjoyed a huge sweet potato from the garden, and chunks of Belgian dark chocolate for dessert.
So it was mostly local.
What's for next year? I'll continue with my veggie gardening and increase the variety of fruits. Our two Manzanita olive trees are growing well and the Mission olive tree is producing nicely. This may be the year I figure out how to cure the olives, or at least press them. This year, I have nurtured two grape vines, a Eureka lemon tree, a blackberry vine and two blueberry bushes. I would like to propagate more this year. I would also like to acquire a banana tree and transplant the fig tree into a more desirable location.
It will be a good year I am sure.

New Potatoes

This year, more and more community gardens are trying potatoes, and all of us are getting better at growing them. This year's cool spring has helped.
I haven't been paying all that much attention to my potatoes. They had been looking a bit sad, so I quit hilling them up after a couple of times. Yesterday I decided to take a look in one raised bin. I realized that I still had two plants out of the four small plants I started with. I dug around the largest one and was amazed to find about 6 pounds of the most perfect red potatoes. They were packed so closely together that they all have a nice compact shape and really easy to dig out. The insides are so creamy and white, and they have such a fresh, earthy flavor.
I took two smaller potatoes and buried them in another bin I rarely water. I need to figure out how to keep these small potatoes healthy until next winter, when I can plant them again.
Over the weekend, I planted 4 sweet potato and yam plants, so hopefully they will do as well as the white potatoes.

The Summer Squashes are Back

This week was another first first for the year. I harvested my first summer squash, and the much-loved cocozelle is the early winner. I really wanted this variety last year, but it didn't work out, so I am quite pleased to have some this year. Here is how the curcurbit garden population is shaping up in 2010.
Pumpkin: 3 Cinderella, 3 Baby Pam
Winter Squash: 3 butternut, 3 buttercup
Summer Squash: 7 total. At least 1 yellow crookneck, 1 cocozelle, 1 round, probably another yellow crookneck, 1 tatume and the others it's too early to tell.
Oh, did I almost forget to mention all the plants in the backyard! I have 8 bush acorn plants that will be thinned down to 3 or 4 plants, and two chayote plants.
Obviously, I have learned nothing from last year.

Let the Games Begin

I gave a trading partner a couple of malabar spinach seedlings and I got a gift in return. Seems he had ordered some pepper plants and had too many, and was looking for good homes for the rest.
What is a "good home" for a pepper plant? There are a few hot pepper fanatics at the community garden, and I am considered to be one of them. A couple of years ago, I got a few dozen hot pepper plants and distributed them to many other "good homes". Since then, my reputation has followed, and the very hottest peppers have come to me. I can grow them so hot on my baking patio that I have trouble eating them. I think its a really good home.
As a pepper-mom, I have promised to take care of my baby plant, to keep it sequestered, and to save the seeds.
I might be in trouble later today when I try to wash the sunblock out of my eyes, because I planted my new baby plant without wearing gloves. Not recommended. It's a Bhut Jolokia!

There Goes the Neighborhood

I just got some new neighbors at the community garden! A local beekeeper convinced the board and the park district to allow the installation of a beehive in the garden. It is a stone's-throw away from my plots, and I am sure they will visit my overgrown radish and mustard plants once they get settled in. I'll leave the flowers in the ground a little while longer, sort of like a bee-version of a covered dish.

Tomatoes!

My first tomato seedlings are up, and they sure are cute. I am not usually that big on getting the very first tomato. I take my time and wait for our evenings to warm up and all the spring crops to be harvested.
Many years I overwinter volunteer tomato plants taken from the garden after fall plantings. But this winter, I got caught by surprise with an early frost and lost all the tomato plants.
This year I am trying the Red Siberian tomato, and not only is it supposed to be the earliest, it can handle cold temperatures during our spring. I got really great germination on some fairly old seeds, and am looking to trade some seedlings for other varieties when the hotter weather arrives.
So many community gardeners are getting into the heirloom tomato craze and have ordered a crazy amount of varieties, all suitable for trading.

Day 26 - SlugFest

This evening, there was a real slugfest in the kitchen sink, as what seemed like thousands of baby slugs crawled out of the lettuce heads and into all corners of the kitchen. So, this is why I am writing today's post on tomorrow.
I got to the garden plenty early this morning, just in case the rain got here a bit earlier than predicted. I picked several large Detroggia beets for a Sunday potluck.
Home by 9:30, I didn't really know what to do with all that time. Egged on by Detroggia beet success, I planted three more bins of beets out on the patio. They weren't Detroggia, I decided to plant more Bull's Blood. This variety just goes so slowly in the winter, so this is their time, I am hoping. I also tried some more Dino kale, although the seeds are pretty old. Everything is safely under glass window panes before the rain and the new cold.
For a late breakfast, I had the usual potato dish, with ginger and mint tea from partner Otto. After I popped it out of the microwave, a trading partner called, and we gabbed for awhile (cause I never hang up on a trading partner!!) and 20 minutes later the potatoes were still hot.
For lunch, I enjoyed a bowl of the vegetable soup, an orange, potatoes with sauerkraut, parsley and mustard seed, apple slices, peas, Detroggia beets and lettuce.
For an afternoon snack, I had some yogurt from partner Alex, and went off to do some shopping. I had some coffee and a piece of sandwich wrap at Trader Joe's and some coffee, mac and cheese, and some potato thing at Fresh and Easy. I splurged on a package of Italian sausage, for $2.46!
For dinner, I enjoyed the Italian sausage with more soup, apples from partner Colin, raisins, almonds from partner Igor, and cake from partner Arlene.
I am still full from dinner, and I am enjoying a cup of ginger and mint tea from partner Otto.
I have 2.65 left in the food bank, and only two more days to go!

Day 25 - Getting ready for More Rain

Today I spent much time at the community garden, and I was able to completely surround one garden with hardware cloth.
I spent the morning coiffuring the fiber animals and washed a couple of hanks of yarn.
For breakfast I had the usual potato, greens cooked in butter, egg, cheese but NO toast, tea from partner Otto. The bread is mostly gone now, though there is a little bit in the freezer.
I snacked on peas in the garden.
For lunch, I had a green drink made with a limequat from partner Colin, celery and kale. I also had a tangerine from partner Earl, half a banana, some fresh peas, granola, dehydrated apple slices, raisins and cake from partner Arlene.
For dinner, I had a large bowl of soup made with turkey from partner Cindy, rice from partner Matthew, carrots from partners Earl and Gaston, a turnip from partner Colin, fresh winter squash, leeks, celery, fennel, kale, beet greens, parsley from the garden, dried garden zucchini, dried garden peas, Jack in the Beanstalk beans, dehydrated vegetables from partner Harvey, pepper from partner Ophelia and salt.
Like day 24, I spent no money on food. I have $5.09 left in the food bank.

Day 6 - Harvard Beets

I "bought" California butter with my extra money today, and now I have 3 cents left. Actually, I bought it the last time I was in the valley, but didn't use it until today. I didn't really need to buy this early, since we drove right past the store on our way into town.
I got to the community garden early today, despite all the rain. I harvested a ton of vegetables and spent over 2 hours in the kitchen, cleaning, prepping, and then making a vegan soup for tomorrow's Quaker potluck. Well, I hope it's vegan. The rain brought out the critters and I found many baby slugs taking refuge in the inner celery leaves.
For breakfast, I munched on snow peas and lettuce.
For a late lunch, I enjoyed a plate of steamed snow peas, broccoli and asparagus from partner Don, topped with a bit of butter. I had a cup of the squash soup, and finished off with a mug of Peet's tea from partner Emily.
The soup for tomorrow's potluck is made from butternut squash, frozen cocozelle summer squash, potatoes, leeks, celery, carrots from partner Gaston, turnips from partner Colin, kale, chard, fennel, dehydrated habanero pepper, marjoram from partner Franklin, rosemary from partner Gert and mixed dehydrated vegetables from partner Harvey.
Over the past couple of years, I have attempted to get seeds from beet plants, with varying success. In 2009, I finally had two types of beets blooming in the backyard at the same time: Chioggia and Detroit dark red. I hand-pollinated and came up with Detroggia, I guess, Chioggia being the mom. The germination was pretty good, but unfortunately, they aren't as nice as either star parent. Despite the parentage, these beets aren't getting into Harvard. They have the conical shape of the Chioggia instead of the nice round shape of the Detroit dark red. They have the more pale red color of the Chioggia without the interesting stripes. I haven't tasted them yet, but harvested several for myself and my trading partners to trial. The greens are of high quality, matching the red of rhubarb chard.
We went out to buffet dinner with friends. I ate everything except the lettuces and celery. It was a treat to have some raisins. I had a bit of difficulty with the vegetables. They just don't taste as nutritious as my home-grown vegetables.

Day 3 - Afternoon

I planted potatoes in the garden today, and it was a huge job because I had to move and mix very much new soil and then shovel it back into the planting barrels. I ate a huge salad for a late lunch, with a mix of garden lettuces, arugula from trading partner Walter, radishes, snow peas, almonds and the wheat berry salad. I also finished the last of the bean soup made yesterday.
For an afternoon snack, I finished the vegetable stew, with some rice medley and fresh garden coriander.
For dinner, I ate a large serving of stuffing made with vegetable broth, celery, leek, parsley, bread crumbs from trading partner Arlene, sage from partner Bret, thyme from partner Tomas and salt. It was served with turkey breast from trading partner Cindy, garden beet greens and turnip greens from Colin. I had another Tootsie pop for dessert.
I am snacking on dried apples as I type this.

Stored sunshine

Throughout the summer and into fall, pumpkins and winter squashes have been marching their way into the kitchen.
What is it about pumpkins? At all the corners of my garden, my baby pumpkins accumulate right by the fencing. It is almost like they run run run as fast as they can, and then when they hit a fence roadblock, they say, "Well, this is a good a place as any," and they flower like crazy and all the pumpkins are piled in a heap by the chicken wire.
The tatume plant employs a a different strategy. It likes to run along the edge of the fence, leaving the fruit at carefully spaced intervals along the way. The plants situate themselves so that the fruit sticks out through the chicken wire fence out into the pathway.
Whatever feng shui strategy the mighty orange ones decide to follow out in the garden, I am in charge after the harvest. I try to keep up with a FIFO system, and have put the babies up on cardboard box pedestals so they won't rot as easily. I dust, rearrange and dote over these orange Hummels, and like chickens, I bring the fresh ones in every night to keep them from predators and let them rest in their "nesting boxes". Every few days, an older pumpkin goes to the chopping block.
Today is the shortest day, but I made up for it by eating plenty of stored sunshine. When I am busy or tired, it just seems like too much work to "boot up" a squash. This week I tried something new. I cut up a buttercup and threw it in the pressure cooker. It cooked for only 12 minutes, and when I was still warm, I put on some local butter and honey. I think this is about the best squash I have ever eaten in my life.
The other squashes are looking a bit nervous, and they have good reason to be worried.

Winter Squash at the Community Garden

It was a real treat to get to the community garden after several days off for the holidays. I don't usually notice how much it grows when I visit every day. Since I am entertaining guests this week, I need lots of fresh veggies for soup and salads. Here's what is in the harvest basket this week:
I am still harvesting a bit of zucchini and baby butternut squash! They are tiny but very appreciated. The beans have been growing and flowering and I was able to harvest several servings. I harvested over a cup of small broccoli flowerettes, and a couple of small fennel bulbs. I left the leeks alone. Before Thanksgiving, I harvested gobs of leeks, only to leave them at home when packing our car for the trip, so I have plenty. I did snag a few scallions. I also brought home plenty of kale and chard, two greens that were greatly missed during our time away. I also harvested plenty of celery for the bean pot.
We made a large salad with freckles romaine lettuce and baby purple mustard. This practice will probably continue almost daily until late spring.
And the new events at the garden? The cabbage is bursting out of its cage, so I set them free. My transplanted lettuce has been eaten down to stubs inside its cage. Slugs? Not sure, but I am sure something is happy and well-fed. The garlic is up, and the newer broccoli plants are ready to start flowering.

Salad competition - Locavore potluck redo

Kris posted his salad, but now we need a salad-off. Since I don't have a camera, I'll have to describe what I got to eat this week. I started with spinach from R, freshly plucked from his garden, crispy-tender and very curly. I added my own freckles romaine baby lettuce, and plenty of lettuce that B gave to me. (She was in Ojai this Sunday and went a little hog-wild at the farmer's market.) The varieties look like cos romaine, red oak, lolla rossa and buttercrunch. She also gave me some tender new asparagus, so I steamed it along with the haricot vert string beans and baby broccoli from my garden. I chopped a huge orange sweet tequila sunrise pepper and a small but deadly orange habanero and added it to the mix. The radishes came from M's garden. They were large and pink, with pink markings on the inside. I also slivered my own celery stalks, scallions and baby fennel.
I did have a dressing, made with local olive oil, sea salt, lime juice from La Casa, Italian and lemon basil from my patio, and R's dried marjoram. I topped the salad with sweet pomegranate seeds that P gave to me.

Amaranth challenge

I sure have harvested lots of the stuff this fall. Several plants ready for harvesting blew over during the Santa Ana winds, chucking lots of their seeds, which sprouted crazily, so I have a second crop. I really want amaranth to work out as a food crop. Who could argue with a plant that grows like a weed, yet grows so beautifully, with almost no water and no care?
Now, what to do with them. I tried cereal awhile back. I roasted the seeds and then ground them up with a mortar and pestle. I didn't get all the seeds, and the cereal was gritty.
Today I decided to give it another try. This time I made sure that all the seeds were crushed, although it sure did take a long time to process. The seeds don't work in the blender and are too small for my grain grinder or my pepper mill, so I am stuck with this hand method for awhile.
While enjoying my pounding meditation, my thoughts drifted to amaranth pancakes with apples. So, I tried mixing up a batter and cooking it in a buttered frying pan. It turned out with the look and texture of a blood clot, but it tasted much better than that. I could eat this again.
After breakfast, I headed to the garden, and stayed there over 5 hours, planting garlic, doing hard labor at the compost bins and helping a friend move a few yards of topsoil. I kept thinking about how unhungry I was, after eating the local breakfast.
I have to figure out more ways to prepare this nice food. This afternoon, the backyard birds were pecking away at the amaranth fronds laid out in piles to dry. They love picking through the leftovers I use as mulch in the kohlrabi bed. There will be plenty for everybody, and much entertainment for the cats.

Smashing Pumpkins

Of course, all my pumpkins look really great, but that's not what this post is about. Last week, vandals cut off the lock on the community garden gate and had a "field day" with lots of melons, pumpkins and other local food and property.
When I first got to the garden, I found the container for the food bank turned over, and several watermelons strewn about in various pieces. It wasn't until I found a row of ripe beefsteak tomatoes ceremoniously gored on a row of rebar fencing that I realized it wasn't just the work of rats.
This is disappointing because after all our challenges with weather, fires, bugs, rodents and disease, for some gardeners, it all came down to some bored neighbors standing between them and some really great local food.
Luckily, most of my pumpkins have already been harvested.

Tomato and Cucumber salad

I am off to another summer of boring salads, not yet, of course. Today is just the start. Yesterday I enjoyed my first home-grown-by-me tomato of the season. It was a small Sungold, but very sweet and appreciated. There was another one ready for lunch today, so I combined it with a cucumber that E gave me.
I couldn't believe my eyes when E pulled the cucumber out of the garden and offered it to me! For me??? You'd think she was handing over the Hope diamond or something. I had a pickle chip on an exception night out a couple of months ago, and one slice of fresh cucumber on a salad when I was out of town over a month ago. Finally a local cucumber showed up at our June Locavore potluck. After last summer's bounty, I never thought I would ever crave another cucumber, but it finally happened.
I will be able to pay E back soon, hopefully. I planted three varieties of cucumbers and have a total of 16 plants, but with the cold weather, maturation has been slow. I have 19 tomato plants.
There are three more Sungolds on the kitchen counter, ripening out of the way of the backyard animals. I can't wait to be bored tomorrow.

Oops! I did it again

Chaos always starts so innocently, as it has been documented over the years. First there was Fantasia. Then there was Lucy and Ethel in the candy factory. Now it's the squash garden.
Last year was a killer year for the squash. I planted several of my own, and there were plenty of seeds in the compost, so I got volunteer squash plants everywhere else. At the peak, I was harvesting over 10 pounds of squash a day. Finally I tore some plants out to make room for other selections, vowing never to do THAT again.
This year, it started out in a similar way. I planted a squash medley in a 6-pack, planning to give any extra seedlings away. After transplanting four of them, I grabbed the 6-pack only to notice that I had planted Baby Pam pumpkin plants instead. I wasn't even planning to plant the pumpkins. I had grown them out for a plant sale to benefit the local food bank. I returned the next day to plant the summer squash. At first I was going to plant only one plant. But, what if my favorite variety didn't come up? I planted three instead, and then planted the other three at home as a shade experiment.
But wait, there's more! I started other winter squash for the plant sale, but it was cancelled. My pumpkins would ripen way too early for fall, I weaseled, and wouldn't keep well and I NEED my local food! A few of each kind went into the garden, and of course, I got high germination and transplanted the extras too.
I started more summer squash for a friend: Black eel zucchini and straighneck yellow. My friend said she didn't want any more zucchini, so I prepared a place for a plant. That turned into a few more plantings and of course, an extra yellow squash just because they are different. So far I have:
4 Baby Pam pumpkin
6 summer squash medley
3 Black eel zucchini
1 straightneck squash
4 Butternut
3 Buttercup
Now all I have left to do is to start the pumpkins I REALLY wanted.
This year will be different. I am armed with a dehydrator, and I have heard that squash chips are really really good.

Am I elitist?

Local food is expensive in my area, but I tell myself that I can safely avoid the “elitist” designation by attempting to grow as much of my own food as possible. Anyone can do it, right? Well, I rely heavily on my plots at the community garden.

Not everyone can do as much food-growing as I can. (M, one of my garden neighbors, insists that I live at the garden, and has suggested that I have a campsite somewhere underneath the fava beans and chard.) Gardeners with unrelenting and inflexible work schedules cannot do as much. But anyone living in an apartment or even in their car can get at least one small plot or share it with others, all for about the yearly price of a pair of Nike sneakers, can’t they?

When I managed the community garden, one of my highest priorities was to increase the number of gardens so that we could spread fixed costs around and keep the rental fee affordable. I succeeded in filling the place so that we could get our landlord to fund an expansion. A year has passed since the expansion was completed and as of a few days ago we are full again. Now, all the sudden, not everyone can do this. This makes me a bit uncomfortable. I want everyone who lives on a budget to be able to eat locally and sustainably.