Dirt Farmer

I guess this is why real farmers wear overalls and not shorts. At least I was wearing my work boots. Clearly.

One can blithely rip out one's lawn, but then a realization sets in about how to fill up all that space without simply paving over it. Something more sustainable than turf grass, but attractive and even  functional.

In addition to dividing my over-crowded hostas around the back of the house, it was necessary to purchase a few dozen plants. These were mainly of the shade to part sun variety: ferns, more hostas, some black-eyed Susans and cone flowers, and a few other varieties.

First thing was to prep all the boundary areas so the mulch would stay put.

Then I began a marathon planting session that required the use of forty five bags of pine bark mulch.

Before.

After.

Doesn't look like much yet, but in a few years, I hope it will fill out and be half as lush and verdant as my neighbor Nancy's (background).

I dug up an old sidewalk that was previously  overgrown and unusable and much closer to the house, and moved it further out.

The next step is to terrace the remaining and sun-soaked lawn to the street, then build and install raised beds for vegetables. Perhaps a job for the cool autumn.

Garden Update and Recipe

The warm weather has helped the garden tremendously. Now if it would just quit raining so much. Can't eat the salad greens fast enough. All the greens are doing well. Made a delicious (I was told) meal with collards last night. 

Collard Greens With Farro, Mushrooms, & Black Eyed Peas

Vegetarian or vegan.

I modified a boring ol’ NYT recipe by adding mushrooms & black eyed peas, and doubling the garlic. I also changed how they cooked the farro and collards. So I guess this is pretty much my recipe now. One could also turn this into a risotto by adding a little Parmigiano Reggiano when the farro is almost done.

1 large bunch collard greens (about 1 1/2 pounds), stemmed, leaves washed

Salt & black pepper to taste

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1/2 medium onion, chopped

5 large garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary

3/4 cup farro

1/3 cup dry white wine

1 quart veggie stock, vegetable stock or water

1/4 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

3/4 cup frozen black eyed peas

5 oz. fresh crimini mushrooms

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Fill a bowl with ice water. When the water comes to a boil, add the collard greens. Blanch for four minutes, and transfer to the ice water with a slotted spoon or skimmer. Drain and squeeze out extra water. Chop the greens into 1 inch pieces.

2. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a wide, heavy saucepan or Dutch oven, and add the onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender (about five minutes). Add a generous pinch of salt, the garlic and the rosemary, and continue to cook for another minute, until the garlic is fragrant. Stir in the farro, and mix for a minute. Add the white wine, and stir until it has been reduced. Add half the stock and/or water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer 45 minutes, or until the farro is tender but chewy, adding broth/water as necessary. 

3. Meanwhile, cook the black eyed peas in water for about 20 minutes. Drain and set aside. Slice the mushrooms and sauté until they release their juices. Set aside. Chop the parsley. When the farro is done, mix in the collards, black eyed peas, mushrooms, and parsley. Heat through and serve.

Yield: Serves six.

Advance preparation: Will keep for two or three days in the refrigerator and reheats well.

Dry T-Shirt Contest

Hello! Hello, eh! 你好！Hallo! こんにちは,! Dai duit! Halo!, Salam!, привет! สวัสดี! Merhaba! привіт! Dzień dobry! Olá! Allô! Hola! These are the country  flags where this blog's viewers reside. I'm challenging someone from each of these countries to leave a comment.

Also, there is a flag from a country where no one has viewed the blog. I'll send a free Beetnik Farm T-shirt to whoever correctly guesses this country, regardless of where you reside.

Oh, and don't forget to check out this link: http://www.skydamon.com/beetnik.html

Take That, Dow Chemical; Make My Day, Dupont

Hey, Monsanto, meet Tyne Daly.

Yup, I named my rented rototiller after the actor who played Detective Mary Beth Lacey, one half of the iconic 1980s crime fighting duo, Cagney and Lacey.

Who better than tough-as-nails Lacey to take on the agro- and petrochemical industries? These companies have  convinced several generations of Americans to grow toxic golf course lawns free from weeds and fauna. Only one way to do that: spray our monoculture turfscapes with billions of gallons of poison, waste trillions of gallons of water, and spew tons of fossil fuels into the air mowing the damn stuff. And for what? For our annual game of croquet? Or for the dog we're too lazy to walk?

Now, while I've never used any chemicals on my lawn, I am guilty of cropping it with a gas guzzling mower. Many years ago, I did buy a manual push mower, but the crab grass is so thick, my push mower just didn't cut it.

I've been waiting twenty years to rip this unnatural, Sam Donaldson rug off my yard, and replace it with useful and ecological plants of the vegetable and wild flower variety. Even the Side Show Bob spirea we have next to the house is a better use of land.

For starters, let's be real: I'm only taking about a third of the front yard's turf grass at this point (the side and back lawns have long ago been ripped up). I still have to accumulate the flora with which to replace it. One can only divide one's hostas so many times. And, I still have to terrace and build raised vegetable beds.  But, mark my word, I plan to rid our entire property of all turf grass. Notice to the City of Des Moines: This includes the parking strip between the sidewalk and the street.

That first pass was cathartic. Tyne kicks ass.

Three-quarters of the way there and I've only used up an hour of my four-hour rental. Maybe I should do the neighbors a favor. I'm sure they wouldn't mind.

There, that wasn't so bad, was it?

Reminds me a bit of my first Navy haircut.

Turf Grass: It Just Ain't Natural

Stay tuned tomorrow: Kill the lawn, Part One, at Beetnik Urban Farm #2.

Do Fence Me In • Part Deux

Finally time to start attaching the fencing to the posts. The fencing we chose is what's known as ornamental double loop. It's also known as arched cemetery fencing because of its use in cemeteries in the early part of the last century. It consists of crimped 11 gauge vertical wires looped at the top and again about two feet from the bottom. The verticals are woven together with twisted 13 gauge horizontal wires for added rigidity.

Only two U.S. manufacturers make this fencing  anymore. We chose Hutchison Incorporated of Colorado because they have a branch in Manchester, Iowa where I could pick it up. It weighs over 150 pounds for a hundred foot roll, and we needed two rolls.

This is how it looked after the first run was attached on the west, or street side of the garden.

Two sides down; one to go.

Marty overseeing as we prepare to install the final stretch of fencing on the north side of the garden.

First we roll out the fencing along the entire section.

Notice the technique: Heads down, eyes forward, knees bent at thirty degrees. Cap bills properly facing forward.

Then the fence is popped upright along the entire seventy-five foot span.

This of course is not without its risks. It's important to be sharper than the fence.

One big challenge, especially when installing fence on a slope, is stretching it taut. We lacked an actual tool for this, but improvised one using ratchet tie-down straps and a piece of steel woven between the fence horizontals.

Then the two straps were tied around the next set of posts.

Then carefully tightened.

Almost there.

Logan standing guard.

A view from the northeast corner. Tying into the existing rustic posts proved to be challenging as they were hard as iron, perhaps old hickory logs (bottom left in the photo).

Only one thing left to do: Install the cedar one-by-fours to each post to give it that finished look.

Gomer Pyle in his improvised shop. This is where the magic happens.

I caved in and used the pneumatic nailer for the finish nailing on the eighteen posts. With ten nails a post, that's 180 nails. My tired old carpal tunneled hands thanked me.

Now ready to dig up the remaining turf grass.

Do Fence Me In

When I first saw this beast, I'm not sure why, but I felt it presaged something ominous, an omen of sorts, a foreshadowing of portents that wouldn't bode well. (Sorry for that. Wrong spelling anyway, just low-brow homophonic punnery.)

Getting the augur (er, auger) started and vertical was the first challenge.

It really starts to bite when it cuts into the clay about two feet down. Then it can spin you around like a slo-mo top. After this three-foot hole, only seventeen more to go.

Then all we had to do was pop in eighteen posts, an eighty-pound bag of Quickrete concrete mix around each post, and back fill with gravel and dirt.

Before we add the fencing, each post will be cut to four feet.

The plan was to run river rock around the perimeter of the fence line to minimize maintenance.

By the way, this really is no country for old men.

After digging the trenches, we lined them with landscape fabric and plastic edging.

Then it's simply a matter of filling in the trenches (or trench, since they're all connected) with river rock. This first bit is the low hanging fruit due to it's proximity to the rock pile. The rest will require filling wheel burrows and schlepping about.

Ta da!

Each post then had to be cut to four feet above ground, an angle cut that took two passes with a circular saw.

The penultimate step to adding the fencing was to install horizontal supports at each corner and at the end of each run of posts. Next blog post, an introduction to beautiful and retro ornamental double-loop fencing.

Buy Your T-Shirts Now

You can now purchase Beetnik Urban Farm T-Shirts from our new web site. Price is $20 plus $3 shipping and handling.