Spinach sprouts...

They're up!!!

It IS spring. My knees are telling me so - as I've been digging and planting, my mid-age knees remind me that some days, they are older than the rest of me.

This is a quick update - more this weekend. Mostly this beautiful image of what's happening in the garden!

How do you know it's spring?

Rain & hail & March, oh my.

I am at the J.O.B. Driving a computer. It's raining outside - it's March in Seattle, after all... the Ides of March nonetheless. I would rather be wet and muddy outside. However, the bills will be paid once again this month.

I'm dreaming of... the tiniest beet greens emerging... nasturtiums... carrotling leaves poking up through black soil... the first thinning of spinach! You?

Seeds!

Okay, it happened! I could not wait a moment longer, so despite the intense, side-ways, cold driving rain, My dear friend Cheryl & I planted peas, spinach, and icicle radishes yesterday afternoon. It was about 40 degrees out, and thank goodness for raised beds and compost. The bed was draining well; the paths, mud and muck. A darn good thing I had hauled a few loads of coarse fir chip mulch down for the paths on Saturday, otherwise I think we'd still be stuck in the mud!

The night temps are due to drop into the low 30's later this week. I am on the hunt for some inexpensive floating row cover - called remay - or a cheap/free alternative. May be cardboard boxes - just to give those seeds a bit more insulation. I really really want some warm weather... what are you planting?

Onward!

On the other hand~

Since it's COLD and RAINY in Seattle... I am tempted to simply stay inside with hot cocoa and read seed catalogues. Not actually plant anything.

Tomorrow...

... is the day we rebuild our P-Patch bed and prepare it to plant peas, spinach & chard on Sunday! Sooo excited.

I'm really looking forward to getting dirty tomorrow. This week at the J.O.B. has been hectic - our annual fundraising event - and though it rocked, I am pretty much toast.

What's your garden up to this weekend?

Compost happens!

Weather, and then some more rain!

Wow. Late winter in Seattle is a wild ride! Today there was driving rain, seriously felt like a monsoon, except cold. The temp is around 50, but it feels colder. Many jokes about kayaking to the office... And thus our Seattle Smallhold is conceptual right now... though we will be planting peas this weekend! As well as spinach and chard.

Daffodils are heading up, some of the species ones are open. So too are early crocus and a tiny species iris. The ornamental cherry trees on Beacon Avenue are a dark pink cloud - so gorgeous. If the weather holds I'll ask M to get some photos this weekend.

Days like today I am almost glad I drive a computer during the week. I sure know that as spring unfolds, all I'll want to do is get dirty in the garden.

What are you dreaming of?

More pictures...

My amazing husband, Michael, wrangling the weeds in the neglected P-Patch bed... and after his hours of hard work. Someone left a shovel to overwinter outside...

Pics!

Bunly Yun is our area P-Patch manager. He works for the City of Seattle. He met us at our P-Patch - the 29th & Brighton Garden - on Friday. Outside the gates is a darling little kids playground- you know, the kind with bouncy critters on big ol' springs for 3 year olds to ride? Inside we found a strawberry plant still green after a long winter, and a squash husk going back to the Mother. I just cannot wait to sow some seeds... and to meet my fellow P-Patchers! Bunly showed me the list, and the majority are people from Vietnam, Cambodia & China. I'm looking forward to learning about what grows in my neighbors' garden... what's growing in yours?

I guess I'm still a hippie at heart...

Which means no photos today. M took some great ones as we wrangled English ivy, quack grass, buttercup, and other noxious beings at the P-Patch garden yesterday. Sadly, I'm still the tech noob, so I'll get his help tomorrow.

We now have a huge pile of gorgeous mulch taking over my parking spot in the driveway! A craigslist freebie from a tree trimmer. He promised a yard or so of Doug Fir & Maple chips, delivered. I came home to FOUR yards of it. Sheesh! Very pleased. Thanks, CL dude.

Quick! Back to the garden!

I just dashed in the door from our *new* P-Patch to grab some cookies - I made oatmeal cranberry cookies last night - and see if the lumber store is open (the bed rails have disintegrated and need to be replaced before we can plant). Our bed is is the messy, grassy one on the left - the fourth one up, right next to one full of garlic. This is the 'before' pic. It's obviously not been cultivated in some time! I'm assassinating miles of English ivy along the fence-line while Michael is cleaning the bed out. I had to post an update... and photos tomorrow!

Winter is over, right?? It's sunny and nearly 50 here. Cherry trees are in full bud with pink showing, the roses are growing, crocus are opening, and we'll be planting next weekend!

M is waiting for those cookies... now go outside!

What is it... ?

Loathe as I am to cite Wikipedia as a source - I did spend some years parenting teens reluctant to use primary sources for their schoolwork - I found their definition useful when asked what a Smallhold is.

Just as Urban Homesteading is reclaiming the concept of Homesteading and turning it on its side for a 21st century urban application, so I am calling our newly turned and planted life of producing food from our urban yard a smallhold. Clearly we're not yet earning our livelihood from this adventure, or creating a rural lifestyle for ourselves.

As global populations shift from rural to urban contexts, raising food comes to the city. I'm surrounded by families who come from rural and subsistence smallholding traditions - from China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Mexico, the Res.

Tomorrow Michael & I head to our new holding; 100 SF of earth we will till to raise food. It's on public land - owned by Seattle Housing Authority, and managed by the City of Seattle. Our bed is one of eleven... soon we'll meet the other ten families who till these beds, as see what they grow.

"A smallholding is a farm of small size.

In third world countries, smallholdings are usually farms supporting a single family with a mixture of cash crops and subsistence farming. As a country becomes more affluent and farming practices become more efficient, smallholdings may persist as a legacy of historical land ownership practices. In more affluent societies smallholdings may be valued primarily for the rural lifestyle that they provide. Often, the owners do not earn their livelihood from the farm."

~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallholding

Summer...

... this is what it looks like in our back yard!

Lilacs, peas and a mouse's ear...

In a 2006 article in the Seattle P-I, noted gardener and author Ann Lovejoy said this:

" One of the most common temperature-sensitive plants is the humble lilac. Its buds are triggered not by light but by soil temperature. The rule of thumb is to plant your peas when lilac leaves are the size of a mouse's ear."

I love this! I have two lilacs in front side-by-side, one white and one lavender, and a dark purple one in back, thanks to my dear friend Bert (Crown Hill gardener and uber cool dude). I love when they bloom. I was born on May 1st, and my Mom always said that the scent of lilacs was in the air that spring day in Denver.

I'm dreaming of the day that their unfurling, pale pale green leaves will be the size of a mouse ear, and I'll run down the block to my P-Patch to plant peas! Now these two are forever linked... when do you plant your peas? What peas do you like best? Tell me! Maybe I'll try them all this year.

Ann's Organic Garden: Lilac says when to plant peas

Endurance

Tempestuous weather. Budding cherry trees on Beacon Ave., peonies coming up... and still too cold to work the soil or plant!

Also learning this blog site. How do you have patience?!? For spring, for technology?

Another Urban Homestead!

Seattle Smallhold is our SE Seattle urban lot + P-Patch garden. My husband and I have entered the next era of our lives - the kids all grown and gone era - and are moving towards food sufficiency in the heart of a dense urban neighborhood.