Cal,
If you have the desire to grow some of your own food, half an acre is a very good plot size for vegetarians.
Back between in junior and senior year in high school, I got a weird urge to grow something I could eat. I looked up what grew well in the Estancia valley, with its hard, alkaline soil, and found out that I could grow potatoes with not too much effort. I asked dad if we could rent a roto-tiller and he just pointed to the pick and the hoe. So I hand-tilled up almost a quarter acre of our property, got sand, and organic material then made my own rich soil for growing. It was still going to be alkaline, but the potatoes supposedly wouldn't mind this.
I planted rows and rows of potato eyes and they came up! It was a hot summer and my dad said they were the most expensive potatoes in the world but our water bill was literally a few dollars back then (my dad is the guy who will drive halfway across town to buy gasoline from a station selling it $.02 less than one along the route of his commute. Total waste.)
Anyway, I tended those potato plants for a few months then harvested them and we had over a hundred pounds of "Augsberg Gold" varietals. Perfect for tossing a bit of olive oil on, some salt then baking in the oven for a spell. We ate those potatoes for months, so the expense in water paid off.
Just a small plot, maybe 20x20 feet would provide enough potatoes for a couple into the winter. I loved growing my own food and it is my eventual goal to do this again.
Phil Forrest
Phil,
I rented a row house in Greenpoint. The owners had three young daughters, and had an above ground pool for them. Around the pool was a concrete patio. Over the years the loam and organic matter was depleted from the soil and what remained was an 18 foot circle of sand left behind when they moved into the burbs in Westchester.
McGolrick Park was nearby, and I raked windblown fall leaves into garbage bags to add into my sand garden. I destroyed a pair of workboots tilling that sand. I added bails of peat moss, cow manure, bags of lime...
The small backyard became a wonderful haven. I set it up with a containered herb garden near the door where I would grill and barb-B-Q.
I set paving stones to create a weaving walkway that meandered across the 18 foot circle lined with hostas. Beyond the hostas were flowering plants. The first year they were just a blend of wildflowers. The next year it was a bulb garden.
Way in tha back was a concrete landing that rose up a step. I used containers and set up a swamp garden, so we had a different enviornment that included a 55 gallon clay Chinese urn that I had water lillies, water Hyisith. Had a large container of Pickeral Rush with its stalks of purple flowers. In the urn with the water lillies I had Koi.
As a tree I grew a large Butterfly Bush in a galvinized wash bin. It created a wall like partition to cordon off a small table and two chairs for a coffee spot, a place to have breakfast or have dinner outside.
Within this small backyard I had created all these different spaces.
Interesting to note that I trained the Koi to be domesticated. One trick is to introduce them to and put in a few dumb goldfish. Evidently this calms them. Then like a dog you use food to train them. I could feed them out of my hand.
When we moved to our loft in Williamsburg I set up the Koi urn up in the loft, then I bought a Eiheim filter that was built for a 300 gallon aquarium to use on the 55 gallon urn. Koi live to eat, and I wanted to see how big I could grow these fish.
One fish I named Shaq because he was big and fat, but he did all kinds of stuff and tricks to make me feed him. He would come out of the water and splash me. Eventually he grew to be a 6-7 pound fish. When I had people over they would be drawn to my Koi, and Shaq would come out of the water like a jumping Mako shark to scare them.
My other large Koi was named Ali, short for alligator. He tended to hover horizontally near the surface. He was kinda a Brooklyn thug in attitude.
Because I had 5 Koi in such a confined space I would pump the water out the nearby window into the flower beds outside, and effectively I exchanged the water completely every day.
When there was a blackout in NYC I used a five gallon bucket to manually airate the water. I would drink a quart of water and went to sleep, but in about 40 minutes to an hour I would wake up to pee. At that time I would airate the urn again and drink another quart of water. This is how I saved my fish.
Also know that back in the day when I smoked weed I cultvated pot. I culled the male plants and this made the female plants into a different kinda plant where they concentrated all their efforts into reproduction. Skill was required because females would become hermaphoditic and grow male organs to self-pollenate.
I ended up growing the best weed I ever had.
Interesting to note that even though "Maggie" is a Social Worker that she had little understanding about our rescued dog with all his phobias and special needs.
Baby-Dog would attack people lunging at them. He had already bitten people twice before we got him, and there is a law that after three strikes the cops and ASPCA would take him an put him down.
So in East Harlem I had this 15 pound dog with a Miniture Pincher body with a Beagle Face that I had to muzzle because he was a vicious dog. Eventually he became famous in the hood, and everybody knew him. They rooted for him as the underdog.
Down the block on Third Avenue is a halfway house for ex-felons that use to be called "The Parole Transition Institute." All those guys understood "Three Strikes and you are out."
So Maggie with her PhD made a big deal that our dog never attacks people when she takes him out and that he only attacks strangers when I walk him. Maggie with her PhD didn't figure it out that he was overly protective of me because to him I was the one that mattered and the one that was important to him.
"Don't tell Maggie," but I just kept quiet. LOL.
Anyways, it would be nice to have a small greenhouse to grow, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, peas, string beans, eggplants all year round in containers.
Also know that I'm the person who cooks, cleans, and does the laundry. As a kid I always had to take care of myself. Early on in life I knew I had to take care of myself and learned to be self sufficient.
Cal
My Makiflex Cameras by Nokton48, on Flickr
