First Post

Hello, this is my nth attempt to start a blog about veggie gardening, but I am SURE that this is the winner. Anyway, I have had a couple of raised beds in my front yard shown in the picture to the left. Basically, this was the only place to put the garden that didn't take up the remainder of our backyard and that had enough sun. Turns out that front-yard veggie gardens are a great way to get to know your neighbors. Not long after I did this, a bit of a big deal was made by Fritz Haeg about the entire concept of reclaiming our front yards for something other than lawns.
So, long story short, we decided to re-install our irrigation system and during the lawn removal and planning, we decided to add a second set of veggie beds. I am really excited as this will allow me to grow just about everything that I have ever wanted to grow. I will get into this later. What is funny is that just about everyone that knows us assumes that we did this with the intent of adding more "farm" to the front, but it really just started out as an attempt to fix the watering situation, which had finally devolved in May into a series of 20 foot geysers in the front yard.

This is a relatively recent picture of the disaster that my front yard was for most of the summer.



Shortly I will post pictures that show the progress that we have made, resulting in the short term in an even more disastrous looking front yard. Stay tuned!

Better comparable Picture

This is a better view of the dirt.

First Post

Hello, this is my nth attempt to start a blog about veggie gardening, but I am SURE that this is the winner. Anyway, I have had a couple of raised beds in my front yard shown in the picture to the left. Basically, this was the only place to put the garden that didn't take up the remainder of our backyard and that had enough sun. Turns out that front-yard veggie gardens are a great way to get to know your neighbors. Not long after I did this, a bit of a big deal was made by Fritz Haeg about the entire concept of reclaiming our front yards for something other than lawns.
So, long story short, we decided to re-install our irrigation system and during the lawn removal and planning, we decided to add a second set of veggie beds. I am really excited as this will allow me to grow just about everything that I have ever wanted to grow. I will get into this later. What is funny is that just about everyone that knows us assumes that we did this with the intent of adding more "farm" to the front, but it really just started out as an attempt to fix the watering situation, which had finally devolved in May into a series of 20 foot geysers in the front yard.

This is a relatively recent picture of the disaster that my front yard was for most of the summer.



Shortly I will post pictures that show the progress that we have made, resulting in the short term in an even more disastrous looking front yard. Stay tuned!

I have thought the same thing many times

Effects of Cheap Food

One horse commonly beaten to death in conversation among food-obsessed people like myself is agricultural policies leading to cheap corn and soybeans (among others). This leads to all sorts of cheap, crappy food that is not healthy, so we complain.

I've been thinking about this further though and trying to really grapple with what reality could look like without cheap commodified foodstuffs like corn, etc. The short version is whether the increase in bad health outcomes has really been offset by a decrease in hunger, malnutrition-related health problems?

Potting Shelves

Starting things from seeds takes lots of room and I have been running out of it as I have been starting ~100 strawberry plants, and plan on starting many leeks, onions, lettuces, etc.  So I built some outdoor potting shelves:

What's really cool is that all of the wood for this project came entirely from wood that I have saved from leftovers of other projects as well as a worktable that was at the house when we bought it and and saved the wood, thinking, "someday, I might have a use for this..."  The second 'R' is "reuse"!

also entertaining is that I think that my shelves look like an AT-AT walker:

tempting...

someday, maybe, this will be me and our little gaggle...

I'm it

No, that is not a statement of unbridled narcissism, it is a result of having been "tagged" by one of my readers, malisa who has a blog, mostlygardening. What does this mean, getting tagged?

The Rules:
Link to the person who tagged you. (done)
Post the rules on your blog. (done)
Write six random things about yourself. (see below)
Tag 4 people at the end of your post linking to their blog.
Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

If I was more clever, I would probably link to things that are outside of the box that I have constructed here at Frontyardveggies.com, but alas, I am not so clever. So, I am going to highlight some of the blogs on my blogroll that I think have been crucial to me in my interests in kitchen gardening:

david lebovitz (search for entry: "improve cooking" and you will find where some of my inspiration for herbs came from, though my "epiphany" on this predates reading his description.)

inpraiseofsardines.com (this is very focused on the personal journey of the chef, Bret, as he is opening a new restaurant, but the archives are filled with fantastic posts on cooking simple, regional foods from spain that are wonderfully compatible with kitchen gardening)

simplyrecipes.com (I don't go here enough, but the blog started out as one woman's attempt to catalog some favorite recipes from her mom/family and became a daily treasure of simple recipes that taste wonderful. What typically makes these recipes great are simple preparations that highlight good ingredients. Perfect for the kitchen gardener!

kitchengardeners.org (how could I almost forget!! This is a combo blog/newsletter/growing movement. The founder Roger Doiron, is doing a great job and it is fun to hear from others that are having fun growing their own food. Good resource, and they held a contest in which I placed third for this blog, so hear hear to KGI!)

6 random things