Farming in the city doesn’t sound as, well, sexy as “Sex In The City,” but it is still a catchy title.

As most of my longtime readers know, I grew up half in the city and half on a farm. On the weekdays, I lived in Charleston, West Virginia, where I attended the closest things to inner-city schools West Virginia has–Piedmont Elementary, Roosevelt Junior High School and Charleston High School. We had drug problems, violent altercations and even bomb scares now and again. Nothing like the school shootings one hears about now, but the schools were pretty rough, and the neighborhood where we lived wasn’t exactly suburban, if you know what I mean.

Then, on the weekends–nearly every weekend–and for weeks in the summer, I lived on my grandparents’ farm in rural Putnam County–only forty-five minutes from Charleston, but a place that was worlds away from city life. Time went slower on the farm, oddly slower, considering all of the activities we managed to cram into each day spent there. Planting corn, digging potatoes, putting up bean poles, mending fences, feeding cattle, hogs and chickens, picking strawberries, freezing peas, canning tomatoes, pulling turnips, making pickles, harvesting black walnuts, catching fish, butchering hogs, building cold frames, cutting and baling hay–the work on that farm was never-ending.

It was never ending, and it was wonderful. Living on that farm was like nothing else you can imagine–the dank, rich smell of the earth in the early spring during plowing, the sound of hens clucking and singing in the foggy still hours of dawn, the sight of maple trees gone to flame in the woods in October, and the sweet, fragrant burst of the first strawberry, warmed in the May sun and filled with juice.

I grew up learning all sorts of skills that were beyond the ken of my friends at school, skills that made it seem as if I lived part time in another century. When I described what I did on my weekends, or worse, during the summer, to the kids at Roosevelt or Charleston High, more than one of them laughed in disbelief and proclaimed that it sounded like I grew up in one of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books. They would listen, goggle-eyed and scoffing when I would describe rapturously, how much fun it was to hang out with my family and crack black walnuts with hammers or spend back-breaking hours sweating in the potato field, digging tubers.

I could never convey that no matter how much work we did, and how hard it was, we still had time to play. It didn’t matter how much work we did in a day, we still had time for long walks in the woods where we saw squirrels chasing each other, wild turkeys foraging in the brush, and once, a rabbit plucked from the ground by a red-tailed hawk who dove like a flashing arrow from the sky, and just as fast, was gone again. We always had time for swimming or fishing in the pond, or catching tadpoles or toadlets. There was always a moment for a pick-up game of one-on-one basketball with an uncle, cousin or neighbor. There was time to ride the pony, time to run in circles and chase the farm dogs, time to climb trees and time to twirl in the tire swing that swayed beneath the huge black locust tree next to the barn.

And in the evenings, there was time for reading and gathering to watch a television program or two. And there was always time to lay under the night sky and stare up in awe at the stars–the stars that were unimaginably bright and seemed so close, far from the light pollution and smog of the city.

Nor could I make them understand that all of the food we produced tasted so much better. It was too much work, my friends said–why work so much when you can just go to the supermarket? Why grow lettuce from seeds when it was so cheap at the store? Why bother gathering eggs, why butcher cows, why harvest corn, gather walnuts? Why can tomatoes, why freeze beans, why make jelly or jam or pickles? They all are at the store….

I could never convince them that corn tasted unimaginably sweet and sunny when you picked it one minute, husked it the next and dropped it for only a minute in boiling water just seconds later. Or how good eggs gathered from the warmth of a hen’s nest one minute, then fried the next. I could never explain the richness of the yolk–the brilliant orange color that came from hens who gathered bugs and grass and snippets of weeds from the garden. Or how sweet and clean-tasting a catfish you caught yourself tasted. Or how the meat of a steer who was raised on grass and hay and corn we grew ourselves and who was never mistreated, but petted and loved every day of his life was so much better. Or how blackberry jelly made from berries gathered along the edge of the woods tasted exactly like the long days of summer!

They never understood, and I always felt that maybe they were right–I had grown up straddling two realities, two times, two lifestyles and I never felt quite at home in either. (The rural kids I played with all summer long liked me, but thought I was quite strange, very bookish and unable to speak their language without sounding awkward. I never could call a dragonfly a “snakedoctor,” or say “crick” or “yonder” without making a fool of myself.)

But it seems that some of those kids, and their peers around the country, and some from the generations after us, now that they have grown up, have finally learned what I tried to teach some of them years ago. The old ways that Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about, of preserving food for the winter, of self-reliance and of being intimately involved in the production of your own food are coming back into vogue, and not just by the “back-to-the-landers” who left the rat race years ago and moved to rural communities and started farms of their own. The folks who have started valuing self reliance and food production, who have started raising chickens, growing vegetables and fruits in their yards and canning their produce are city dwellers.

Kitchen gardening is on the rise; folks are digging up their yards and planting on terraces even more than before, and community gardens are filling up and expanding. In municipalities which allow it, backyard farmers are adding a few chickens for their eggs and their bug-hunting capabilities. (Not to mention their entertainment value–chickens really are fun to watch.) And for those who grow their own food or those who buy too much lovely produce at farm stands or pick-your-own farms or farmer’s markets, it is only natural to learn how to preserve these foods by canning, pickling, making fruit preserves or freezing.

The recession, a growing local food movement, and mistrust in our food supply arising from various incidents of contamination in the food chain, have propelled this burgeoning interest, but the truth is–I don’t really care why all of this is happening.

I only care that it is happening.

Because the truth is–we humans -need- to be connected to our food supply. Having responsibility for some of our food connects us to the cycles of life, the seasons, and the natural world in a way that I believe is as healthy for our minds and spirits as it is for our bodies. I think it is good for our souls to be involved in the growing and preservation of some of our food–it gets outside, in the sun (which helps our bodies make the all-important vitamin D!) and in the air. It connects us with the world in a visceral way, in a way that feeds us, body and soul.

Remember, I believe that food is not just physical fuel for our bodies–it feeds our spirits and minds as well. When we learn new skills, we keep our minds supple and alert–our intellects grow stronger with each skill we study and learn. Our bodies grow fit with work to do, real work, and our spirits, when connected with the world, grow and develop peacefully.

I have read comments from cynics who decry people who grow their own vegetables in their yards or keep chickens or can tomatoes from the farmer’s market as “foolish” at best or “idiots” at worst. I don’t care what people like that say–attacking those who live life differently than you do is not a good endorsement for your point of view. If one doesn’t want to grow food–don’t.

I won’t look down on them for it.

But, the truth is, I will feel sorry for them.

Because I cannot make them understand; my words are inadequate to describe the richness of experience that comes from such a life.

These are my new titles for our President and First Lady, and I think they are probably apropos, in addition to being cute.

I find it fascinating how everyone wants to know everything about the Obamas–what they wear, where they send their kids to school, and what they eat, all being included in the exuberant public curiosity that follows their every move. I can understand some of it–after eight years of having a pretty uncharismatic First Family for Americans to look at, the Obamas are most certainly a breath of fresh air. They are a beautiful, young, and friendly couple with two really adorable kids, and of course, they came into office on a wave of hope and promise for a new way of doing things in America.

So is isn’t really surprising that people are focusing on what foods the First Family likes to eat. And, all of the media interest makes sense, because as the many new designs of sleeveless fashion can show us, the Obamas are now role models whom Americans seem ready to embrace and emulate.

When it comes to food, the Obamas seem to have come in favor of home gardening, local food, and sustainable agriculture.

How do I know this?

They are breaking ground today on the first full-fledged large kitchen garden on the White House grounds since Eleanor Roosevelt’s Victory Garden during WWII. Local food activists, including Alice Waters, who have been working for decades to get a kitchen garden on the lawn of the White House for years are ecstatic.

As a symbolic act, planting a kitchen garden is a potent one. It harkens back to America’s agrarian roots. It ties in to First Lady Michelle Obama’s call for Americans to eat more fresh, nutritious food, and her commitment towards making such food more available to the masses. It shows that when it comes to her support of community gardening, and edible schoolyard initiatives, Ms. Obama is willing to put her money where her mouth is: apparently, she and the rest of the family will work in the garden along with some lucky kids from Bancroft Elementary School, who are helping to break ground today.

I have to say I am thrilled to see this strong symbolic support from the First Family in areas of local, sustainable food production and food self-sufficiency and security for our nation’s citizens.

As far as I am concerned, it is a breath of fresh air that has been a long time in coming, and I welcome the idea of a president and his family who are willing to get down and get dirty and help produce the food for their own table–just like many other Americans are doing.

Maybe many more Americans will try it, inspired by the Obama’s example.

And whatever gets Americans back into the soil, back into the land that sustains them, gives me hope for our future.

I thought that we were going to be able to terrace the back yard into a workable garden space this year; alas, however, the intractable slope remains intact. The French drains that keep the water run-off from turning our grassy hill into a mudslide have collapsed, resulting in a bog at the top of the hill. So, we are having new drainage installed, as is everyone else who lives at the top of this hill–the neighbors on both sides are having it done, as well as folks up the hill a ways further. It has been a very wet spring and summer, and so it makes sense to deal with the drainage issues.

So, once again, I am gardening exclusively on our deck. However, instead of my usual mixture of decorative and food plants, this time around, I am growing only food, and am surprised at the amount of plants I can grow on the deck.

I have a dozen Thai chili plants, forty basil plants of various sorts–four different varieties in total, a handful of different herb plants, seven large tomato plants, and about forty gai lan plants poking their little sprouty selves up out of the dirt. Last week, I also sowed about twenty methi plants, a bunch of cilantro seed, a potful of mizuna and around the gai lan, which is in a whiskey barrel planter (cut in half longitudinally and set on its side in a cradle which keeps it from rocking), I have sown a lot of baby Shanghai bok choi seeds. I also have ordered another large planter to sow with more gai lan and baby bok choi.

I am amazed at how prolific the garden is, and last night, I took the first harvest from it–a huge bouquet of Siam Queen Thai basil and five Thai bird chilies, which I used in my favorite summer dish: Spicy Thai Basil Chicken. Tomorrow night when I come home from work, I will harvest a big bouquet of Italian basil and make pesto, the first of many batches from my own garden.

There are dozens of clusters of tiny green tomatoes, looking like jade beads, dangling from the five-foot high (and still growing) tomato vines. Kat and I watch them greedily, waiting for them to ripen. There are four different varieties of grape/cherry tomatoes–a green one, a black one, a yellow one and a red and yellow striped one, and then there are three roma type paste tomatoes, called San Marzano. The vines of the plants are amazingly strong–stronger than the ones I planted last year–I planted these tomatoes very deeply in the planter, so that roots grew out of the stems I buried in the compost, peat moss and soil mixture in the self-watering planter. This practice, which I read about last year, creates a stronger, more wide-reaching root system which helps to anchor the plant well and also helps the plant survive drought better, although, unlike last year, this year, lack of rain hardly seems to be the problem. (We’ll see how August goes–that is usually the driest month in our part of Ohio.)

It is always amazing to me how well compost and other organic fertilizers, such as livestock manure and fish, bone or blood meal, feed plants and help them to grow strong and healthy. I overcrowd my plants in the garden–the kindest way to put it is that I garden intensively, though truthfully, it is not just that I admire and emulate the work of John Jeavons, but because I am lazy and hate mulching and weeding. The thing is, if you crowd your plants together in a container or even in the ground itself, the plants grow together and their leaves form a perfect canopy, shading the roots, which not only discourages the growth of weeds (weed seeds are triggered to sprout by the sun), but helps to retain water. It isn’t as efficient as mulching, but then mulch isn’t always the be-all and end-all of gardening–it can harbor mice, slugs, mold and other plant killers. In very wet weather like we have been having, it can trap too much water, leading to root rot and worse, so this year, I don’t feel quite so lazy about going mulch-free.

Right now, my favorite bit of the garden is the half of a whiskey barrel that is serving as a seedbed for gai lan, baby bok choi and methi.

I got tired of not being able to get farmers around here to grow these vegetables consistently, so I decided to up and do it myself. Why not? I had the whiskey barrel empty–it usually harbored a garden of coleus plants–and I had some seeds. The fenugreek (methi) seeds I had were from the Indian market, and they were meant to be ground up and used as a spice. Instead, I soaked them for twenty-four hours, then laid the mushy seeds on damp paper towels, then covered them in another layer of damp paper towels and set them on a cookie sheet in a sunny window for about four days, dampening the towels twice daily. On the third day, I took the top towel off and let the sprouts which were springing forth grow upward toward the light.

The next day, I transferred the strongest sprouts, of which there were around forty or so, to the whiskey barrel and to various pots. The soil was light and friable, amended well with compost, manure and fish meal, and so far, even though right after I planted the tiny things, we had a huge thunderstorm with heavy downpours, the methi plant babies are going strong, putting out roots and working on making true leaves.

The gai lan has already started putting out true leaves, and I will have to thin it soon. But I am still waiting for the cilantro, bok choi and mizuna to sprout.

I can’t wait to see how well they do.

I promise to continue to blog about my green miracles on the deck as they grow and as I harvest, as well as chronicling the delicacies I make from them.

In the meantime, for those who want to grow their own Asian vegetables, you can get seeds for many varieties of greens, roots and herbs from Evergreen Seeds. They ship quickly and their prices are great.

After I wrote a post in May entreating Americans to return to our roots and once again become “a nation of farmers” by growing at least part of our food on whatever spot of earth we can find to cultivate, I was amazed at how strongly my ideas seemed to resonate with readers.

Yesterday as I watered the forty basil plants, (we like basil here–a lot), dozen chili pepper plants, various assorted tomatoes and other herbs up on my deck, I reflected on how good it made me feel to know that in a few months I’d be harvesting a lot of tasty food just outside my kitchen door. In a small way, it brought me back to my childhood summers at Grandma’s farm, and how wonderful it was to grow, harvest, cook, preserve and eat vegetables and fruits so fresh that they tasted of the sweet sun-warmed, rain-bathed earth itself.

Of course, I still look longingly at the huge hillside in our backyard, the one that -will- be terraced within the year, dreaming of the plenitude of food, herbs and flowers we will be growing in the future, but as I do so, I cannot help but think that not only is it beautiful to grow my own food, in the future, it will be an economical choice that will help cut down our food costs as well.

It seems that I am not the only one thinking these thoughts in the United States. Other folks have decided to grow food instead of lawns this year, and many of them cite the rising cost of food as the reason for their sudden interest in vegetable and fruit gardening.

According to the New York Times, sales of vegetable and herb seeds and plants from the W. Atlee Burpee company have risen 40% in the past year–an amazingly precipitous jump that heralds a burgeoning interest in home food production that has not been seen among Americans since the 1970’s. Garden centers are selling out of vegetable and fruit plants and seeds and even potted fruit trees faster than they have in past decades as many new gardeners try out their green thumbs on full-blown kitchen gardens.

In the recent past, Americans have spent most of their gardening money and time on lawns, annual flowers, perennials, vegetables, trees and shrubs, in that order. According to a poll conducted on behalf of the Garden Writers Association, this year, American gardeners’ priorities have changed drastically as vegetables have jumped from fourth to second place.

To my ears, this is amazingly great news, because as far as I am concerned, anything that reconnects Americans to the source of our sustenance as well as getting them outside, moving and exercising in the fresh air and sunlight is wonderful. Gardening not only helps with grocery bills and overall health and fitness, it can also help us develop spiritually. There are so many lessons to be learned while digging in the dirt, pulling weeds and harvesting fruits, and I think that Americans will be the better for relearning these lessons.

Reading the New York Times article brought a smile to my face and to my heart, and I just wanted to share it with everyone here.

And while I am at it, I wanted to share some resources for gardening how-tos and inspiration, because as I imagine that many new gardeners could use a little advice on how to grow vegetables, herbs and fruits most efficiently.

For starters, look at this new article from the LA Times about a technique that allows gardeners to get great harvests with no digging and very little watering. In drought-prone areas of the country, ideas like the ones outlined in this article can help make the difference between puny yields and a bountiful harvest.

Then, check out the supplementary website for the gardening book, Food, Not Lawns. The articles there are interesting and informative and give you an idea on what the book is about, which is a call on how to turn our lawns, which are resource-guzzling areas of essentially wasted space, into productive kitchen gardens and orchards

There is always The Mother Earth News, a great magazine that is chock-full of advice on gardening, frugal living, food preservation, composting, livestock husbandry, energy production, solar power and other green topics. I was first exposed to “Mother” as the publication is known by its fans back when I was a kid, because my grandparents subscribed to it and all of us learned a great deal from it. You can order their complete back issues on CD Rom from their website and I cannot think of a better resource for all things green than that.

Grandpa also introduced me to Rodale’s Organic Gardening by my Grandpa who switched from conventional petrochemical agriculture to organic methods and ended up with higher yields in the long run, not to mention not having to worry about pesticides killing his grandkids if we came across them in the barn.

A book of interest to those of you who are looking to grow food for the first time would be Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food In Hard Times. I haven’t gotten a copy of it yet, but I have read many glowing reviews of it, and when my copy of it comes in, I will definitely review it here.

Eliot Coleman’s Four Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long
is a manual for growing vegetables all year around through the use of inexpensive unheated hoop houses and cold frames. Coleman is a market gardener in Maine, and he sells his vegetables all through the year, and he shows how sunlight and protection from the wind are more important for growing vegetables than temperature.

Coleman also has another useful book–The New Organic Grower–which is great primer on the subject of growing vegetables organically in either a home kitchen garden or a market garden setting. It contains all sorts of useful knowledge for both beginning and advanced gardeners.

Finally, there is Edward C. Smith’s The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible: Discover Ed’s High-Yield W-O-R-D System for All North American Gardening Regions--a very useful guide to growing vegetables in a small or large garden. I really like this book myself and have used the principles outlined in it in my garden when we lived in Pataskala to great effect.

Those are just some of the possible resources for all the new gardeners out there–can any of you suggest others?

Americans need to go back to the land.

I don’t mean this in a 1960’s, leaving the city for a commune in the country, complete with goat milk, wheat grass and sprouted lentil loaves, kind of way.

I think we all need to get back to the land wherever we are.

We need to touch whatever bit of earth we have at our disposal, whether that means a planter on the deck, a grassy front yard, or an empty lot at the end of the block. We need to do more than touch that earth–we need to till it, plant seeds, tend them and watch them grow into food for ourselves, our families and our neighbors.

America used to be a nation of farmers, and we need to remember that and return to our roots.

Why?

Because of rising food prices, and looming threats of food shortages.

Because of lack of availability of fresh vegetables and fruits among the urban poor.

Because of soaring obesity rates, and lowered nutrition among the country’s poor.

Because eating locally is good for us and the environment, and our local economy.

And because we need to remember who we are, as a nation.

Gandhi once said, “To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves,” and he is right. As Americans have turned away from the land, as we have allowed farms to be turned into strip malls and condominiums, as we have turned away from self-reliance and embraced consumerism as a lifestyle, we have forgotten the soul of our nation. We have forgotten what once made us strong, and that was a deep connection to the earth, to our homes, to our neighbors.

We need to rebuild that connection, and in doing so, we will be better able to weather the coming economic recession, high food prices and possible food shortages which loom over our future lives.

And the thing is–gardening and growing at least some of our vegetables and fruits–can be accomplished anywhere. You don’t have to have forty acres and a mule, or even one acre and a rototiller. A small urban yard will do, or a series of containers on a rooftop or balcony or a vacant lot.

Urban agriculture is finally coming back into its own in the US, after last being seen as a real movement during WWII with the “Victory Garden” campaign when rooftops and backyards were planted in cities and larger gardens were dug in the country by people from all walks of life.

The New York Times features an article on the growing trend of urban farming in the US where individuals not only grow food for their families on vacant lots, but also grow enough vegetables to sell to their neighbors. Not only does this bring in extra cash for people in poor neighborhoods, it also brings much appreciated fresh food to people who have little choice in where to shop.

The Times reports that co-ops have been formed, CSA;s have gone urban and restaurants have taken to buying produce grown within their own cities.

Of course, none of this is new–there have always been urban farmers. What is new is the idea that urban farming in the US could help to substantially feed citizens while also boosting local income and microeconomic systems. (Cities in the UK and other countries are also embracing urban agriculture as well, but I am primarily talking about the US for now.)

For proof that city-based agricultural ventures, from backyard gardens to community gardens to full-fledged urban market farms, can produce a significant amount of food in modern times, we need to look beyond the US, however. We need to examine the current urban agricultural system of Cuba.

Cuba’s successful experiment in urban agriculture started as a means to feed Cuba without relying on food imports after trade embargoes caused food shortages. Currently, urban farms occupy around 86,000 acres, and in the past few years, these farms have produced 3.4 million tons of food annually. Urban farms grow 90 percent of the fresh vegetables for the city of Havana alone.

Considering that these government-led and supported urban agriculture programs only started a few decades ago, their success is astonishing, and to me, enticing.

Just think of what Americans could do with our abundance of land, in comparison to the smaller acreage available to Cuba.

Why don’t we do it then? Why don’t we all start planting our own “Victory Gardens” again, and take the time to learn how to grow our own food, and take back a measure of self-reliance once more? Why don’t we claim our own victories–against poverty, against processed foods, against corporate control, against our own complacency–and relearn what we have forgotten: how to dig the earth and tend the soil.

Let’s join other Americans and do it, in big ways and small ways.

Let’s remember ourselves.

Author’s Note: Our backyard is finally being terraced this year, and the first things we will plant in it will be asparagus crowns, strawberries and a bunch of annual vegetables. The ornamentals–the flowers and shrubs, and hopefully fruit trees–will wait for next year. The food comes first.