The peaches are starting to ripen on the peach tree out front. Today I found a peach pit sitting on the front porch. Apparently, Mr. Squirrel had the audacity to lounge on our front porch while snacking on our peaches. The peach tree was covered in netting within five minutes of this devastating discovery. I’m just sorry that we didn’t have the kind hospitality to offer the little dude a mint julep to go with his peach.

Exhibit A: A near-ripe peach on the tree

Surprises are Sprouting

Volunteers: Every garden needs volunteers. About a month ago I noticed that there were volunteer tomato plants sprouting in the herb garden, along with a pepper plant and an eggplant. I deployed my sharp detective skills to determine that this was a by-product of some vegetable seeds from the compost that hadn’t decomposed and decided to sprout. Hurrah for volunteers!

Tomatoes and eggplants have joined the peppers and herbs.

Yum! Yum! Yum!

Mostly we’ve just been digging, planting and sweating Underwood, aside from eating some peppers and amazing fresh herbs. This weekend, we started really eating Underwood. On Saturday morning, we had fried zucchini blossoms, and tonight we dined on zucchini and eggplant with fresh oregano and basil—all straight from the garden. Delish!

Frying the healthiness away!

It’s Hot and We’re Dumb, So We Built a Patio

Alex and I decided that we needed a patio in the backyard so that we can eat the fruits (and vegetables) of our labor while enjoying the view of our garden. Plus, can you get any more local than eating your dinner ten feet from where it was grown? We started building a brick patio this weekend—what a way to spend a three-day weekend. We’re idiots for laboring in the intense heat, but we love our new patio.

Our new brick patio, to be expanded in the coming weeks.

I got worms. […] That’s what we’re gonna call it. “I Got Worms!” We’re gonna specialize in selling worm farms. You know, like ant farms.
Lloyd Christmas (Dumb & Dumber)

Imagine my surprise when I arrived home from work on Thursday evening and found a package waiting for me. “It’s your early Christmas present, from one of our most faithful readers,” Karyn told me.

Without questioning our lack of readers or the fact that Christmas is six months away, I tore open the box to find a small sack wrapped in newspaper. As I scratched my head, Karyn explained, “They are worms for the compost.”

Sure enough, I had received my very own red wigglers from Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm. Within seconds, I was introducing the little wigglers to their new home.

It’s pretty amazing that worms can be shipped through the mail. They were packed in peat moss to keep moisture out. Uncle Jim sure knows what he’s doing: The little guys were healthy and active.

Thanks for the excellent Christmas present, dear reader. Don’t forget that my birthday is coming up soon too!

Among their dozens of films each year, they often screen one or two about gardening, such as THE GARDEN, a documentary about Mexican-American families turning a forgotten corner lot in Los Angeles into a community garden. This year, the they are screening CORNER PLOT, a ten minute short about an old farmer on a one-acre lot inside the Beltway who has seen the neighboring farmland gobbled up by urban developments.

Even as a youngster growing up on a large farm in middle-of-nowhere, Kentucky, I remember how any new construction would be cause for concern. There was the gas station, located a few hundred feet down the road from the first gas station. And the new house on the other side of the ravine.

I even remember stories of county officials trying to double the width of the gravel road that serviced four or five families. Shortly after my my mother joined my father on his family farm, he left for Vietnam and the county officials started pressuring my mother to cut down a magnificent, old tree so that they could widen the road. Despite being the “city woman” in the old farming community (and thus, the outcast), she was successfully able to fend them off, causing them widen the road everywhere except along our land. (After they finished, they didn’t bother servicing any of the road. I’m still not sure if they were retaliating against my mother for not giving in or if they were doing what county officials sometimes seem to do…)

Because I am now gardening in the DC-metro area and because he faces more bureaucracy and change to the surrounding land than I care to imagine, I tip my had to the old man featured in CORNER PLOT. If you’ in the area, I suggest you check it out.

Watch a trailer and see screening times for CORNER PLOT here.

But it’s really the mint that we’ve been hitting the hardest—sun tea with fresh mint, strawberries with mint and—mojitos! Last summer, we raided our mint population so intensely that it was depleted by early July—mostly due to a healthy mojito addiction. This year, we have three pots growing on the front stoop. The mojito, a Cuban drink, may be the perfect summer cocktail.

This afternoon I was reading in Billy McKibben’s book, Deep Economy, that Cuba has developed a sustainable local agriculture system because of the trade embargos. McKibben offers:

“…every formerly vacant lot in Havana seems to be a small farm. The city grew three hundred thousand tons of food last year—nearly its entire vegetable supply… And they’re not just growing cabbage and spinach; each farm also seems to have at least one row of spearmint, an essential ingredient for the mojito.”

So do your part to help support local agriculture: grow some mint, sit out on the front porch and sip some mojitos.

Here’s our recipe (from the book Joy of Mixology):

• 10 leaves fresh mint
• 1-2 teaspoons sugar
• 4 slices of lime
• 2 ounces rum
• club soda

Muddle the fresh mint, sugar and lime until the mint leaves are bruised. Add 2 ounces of rum, stir. Add ice and shake. Strain liquid into a highball glass with crushed ice. Top off with club soda. Garnish with mint leaves.

By this time next year, we hope to have homegrown limes to go along with our mint. Alex bought a lime tree from our local nursery. It’s currently basking in the sun, but come fall, we’ll bring it inside so that it can get the care it needs to become a quality part of our mojitos and margaritas!

If he had had the nerve to peek out the window on the other end of the house, Banjo would have seen something that looked like a slow-motion carnival ride, except these carnies were wielding chainsaws and the thrill seekers were the limbs of a 60-foot tall tree.

Our neighbor had arranged for the entire 60-foot tall, rotten tree to be removed, not just the branch that fell across our yard and onto our other neighbor’s deck.

To Banjo’s horror and my delight, the tree-removal crew was here this morning, before another storm could blow the rest of the tree onto our house. There were several men with chainsaws hacking away at the tree, one on our neighbor’s crashed deck, a second in a cherry picker and a third at the base of the tree.

When I returned home this evening, I was awestruck by the transformation of our back yard. Not only was the entire tree gone, but also most of the multi-flora and poison ivy had been yanked out as well.

I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking, but I will point out that the deck that received the brunt of the damage has been put back in order, our slightly bent fence has been repaired, most of the multi-flora and poison ivy has been removed along with the tree, and our garden beds survived without a scratch!

I can actually see the fence on that side of the house now!

I’m thoroughly impressed with the quality job of the tree removal service and of the quick action by our neighbor.

As for Banjo, he’s still cowering under the bed as I write this. I’m sure the crew left hours ago and I tried to console him, but he’s still not too happy that he had to leave his old home…

Shortly after we got home, the sky began to darken, so we decided to hurry and put the plants in the two new raised beds that Alex built this week, along with some seeds. As we were planting, we started to hear distant thunder. A downpour swept up just as I got the last of the seeds in. (It’s a little late in the season for it, but I planted chard, spinach and collards, all of which promise to be heat resistant). Alex wanted to try and put the basil in, but I could tell that we’d get drenched, so we ran inside for cover.

Not three minutes after getting inside we heard a loud crack, looked out the kitchen window facing onto the backyard and saw a tree beginning to fall. I yelled, “a tree is about to fall on the house,” and darted out of the kitchen. (I may have also ducked while doing so, not sure what good that did). Alex stood there paralyzed and dumbfounded and saw the entire thing unfold.

The tree dropped power lines, bent our chain-link fence and landed on our neighbor’s deck. Unfortunately for our elderly neighbor, the majority of the damage is to her deck. We’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

We’re fortunate at this point that the tree didn’t do more damage, but we’re hoping that our neighbor takes care of the rest of the rotted tree which is now precariously aimed for our house.

Ahhh… homeownership, we knew you weren’t all unicorns and rainbows, but why did you have to reveal your seedy underbelly so soon?

I wasn’t sure if the flavors would work well together, but last night I chopped up a nice strawberry and arugula salad with raspberry vinaigrette:

• Strawberries
• Arugula
• Butterhead Lettuce
• Garlic Scapes
• Red Pepper
• Vinaigrette with Raspberry Vinegar

I thought I was being offbeat and unique, and I was proudly expecting Karyn to resort to mockery when she got home, as she often does with my unorthodox combinations, such as cucumber on pizza.

So you can imagine how Karyn stung my ego when she revealed to me that the strawberry/arugula combination was a classic, dynamite one.

As if that wasn’t enough, she emailed me the following link today:

http://dcist.com/2010/06/click_click_strawberries_salad_gree.php

Not only was my idea not original in any way, but also I made my strawberry and arugula salad on Strawberries and Salad Greens Day! Every school kid in the district was eating the same thing as me yesterday!

But on the bright side, the salad really was incredible. Even my Karyn—my biggest critic—admitted that it may have been the best salad she’s ever had.

Is it possible to “live on the land” when the land is only 2,000 square feet? What happens to our quality life when we live in houses that are only separated by a small row of bricks or a tiny patch of grass? Do we find ourselves yearning for the lost small-town values?

For the past two weeks, Karyn and I have been asking questions such as these. We were both raised as farmers: She on a cattle farm in Pennsylvania and I on pig and tobacco farm in Kentucky. Two weeks ago, we bought a house in our nation’s capital and began life as home-owning, city dwellers.

Don’t think of us as fresh-off-the-farm Little House on the Prairie types or as 21st Century Beverly Hillbillies. We both have been off the farm and living in a city of some sort for the past 11 years. Our friends from childhood would consider us as country as a New York deli. But it’s the fact that after 11 years in cities, our hearts are still tied to the country.

Join us as we bring a little farm to the city at our new home on Underwood Street. If all goes as planned, we’ll focus mainly on our efforts to create an edible yard, but we’ll also take a look at some changes inside.

As I write this post, we have been here for two weeks. We’ve already made four garden beds, planted two fruit trees, and traded out cosmetic vegetation for edible vegetation.