Diamond-Cut Life

I spent an idyllic Friday evening at home, outdoors, with Thor last night in air so warm it felt like it was cradling me. We had dinner on our back patio, which is surrounded by strawberry plants, espalier pear and apple trees, blueberry bushes, tomato plants, basil, our raised-bed salad garden, raspberry and marionberry canes, wine barrels planted with squash and cucumbers, and of course our unabashedly amateur chicken pen, populated with young hens we hope are all hens and not closet roosters. We ate our first ripe strawberries in the slanted-gold evening light, the bright, sweet-tart flavors startling my tongue.

Our housemate and enthusiastic partner in urban farming Evan Wilson helps to make all this possible. (Evan works in exchange for rent, quite the enjoyable win-win for both him and us).

We’re growing more fruits and vegetables than I’ve named above (the front garden has lots going on, too) — yet it all sounds like more than it actually is. If my goal is some degree of self-sufficient sustainability, we’re growing a tiny portion of the food needed to keep us alive. Interestingly, the research says that small holdings of personally farmed land are by far the most productive agriculture per square foot.

Monoculture agribusiness, move over. Urban farmers are on the rise.

photo courtesy of ashe-villain

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