Getting Our Hands Dirty, Feeding the Family

This was taken on 5.12.09.

In two weeks we were eating our own kale and spinach!


AND the same spot a month later.
Those weird tags are scraps of a torn sheet that I used for labeling.

Today, I thought I'd post a few shots of our raised-bed gardens and the deliciousness we've enjoyed from them.
I won't lie to you. Doing raised-bed gardening (or "high-yield" or "square foot") has been a lot of work.
Unlike a traditional garden space, you don't dig down, but rather build up and fill. Mark is quite handy and built our boxes. They're between 4' x 8' and 5' x 8' and all are a little over a foot tall.
Because our garden space is where there was once a jungle of honeysuckle and poison ivy (what a sweet combination!), we laid straw or fire pit ash or tree clippings as a "barrier" layer at the bottom. Then the fun began.

So far, we've collected 7 pickup truckloads of soil, all from the cow field behind our house. We're careful to collect the rich black earth, but not all from one place. It's not our field (though it is our landlord's), but we don't want to disturb the cows and upset the farmer who leases the land. We picked spots where you'll commonly see cows lounging when they're not eating: under the shade of trees. After a while, their "leavings" break down, along with the leaves from the trees. We go through and rake soil up (instead of digging a hole where their resting place is!) and toss it into the pickup. Then we fill the beds.
After 7 truckloads, we have filled 3 of the 4 beds: one more to go!

Is there anything cuter than a cloth diaper butt?

The good news is that we will likely have only one truckload of soil to gather next Spring. The beds will be ready, because this winter, we're hooping them and covering them with plastic to make small greenhouses for winter greens. There won't be an annual "reclamation" of our garden.
Most of the hard work is behind us.
Deliciousness ahead.

We've delighted on making salads out of our own butter lettuce and mescalin mix, topped with wonderfully large radishes. Our almost-nightly servings of greens come from the garden in the form of kale and spinach (and even the radish greens!), and once they're ready, we'll use beet greens the same way.

In a couple weeks, we'll start having tomatoes. These have thrived in our raised beds. We both planted seeds and started with small plants, and within 3 weeks, the plants had grown no less than two feet! We could barely keep up with them before they were so tall we had to help them out. Instead of cages or stakes, Mark was quite creative. He posted a tall stick of wood on either side of the bed. Then he attached a trellis over the tomato plants, one with holes big enough for us to pull the branches through. He also strung two lengths of twine across the top, one 8 inches above the trellis, the other 8 inches about that. And in a week and a half, those tomatoes have soared through the trellis, some of them touching the higher wire. How exciting!
See?

Even though it initially takes work, I'd absolutely recommend doing raised beds. Only a few weeds, not a lot of crouching, and the ability to plant a whole lot in a small space?
Beautiful. Beautiful and delicious.


And the way we eat our greens:
Kale. You'll want about a pound for a family of 5.
Fresh garlic
Braggs (like soy sauce. If you can't find it, go for naturally brewed soy.)
Olive oil, butter, or bacon grease (that last one is a v. Southern way to cook it)
Optional addition: Sriracha or hot sauce, as desired

Sauté until greens are no longer crunchy. There are various types of kale and other greens, and they all have different textures, so just watch and taste until they're at the desired level for a wonderful side dish.

Enjoy!