The Project

You could say that unemployment has its advantages. All of a sudden, you have lots of time to do those things you always wished you had the time for, if it weren't for all those hours you were putting in at the office. That's the way I've preferred to look at it, anyway. So, when the weather became uncommonly spring-like in February, I went out to the backyard and began to make my mini-farm dream come true.

This has required lots of digging because the "back 40" of my standard 50' x 100' city lot has, up until now, been a mass of Himalayan blackberry vines. Yes, I could rent a backhoe or goats to get rid of them, but I'm unemployed. I have no money. So this project requires a lot of manual labor and ingenuity and not a whole lot else. Besides, it's more fun that way. Really!


Previously, my friend Tim whacked back a lot of the berry vines, so my task now is to dig up the roots. If you don't dig up the roots, the vines just grow back. Himalayan blackberries are evil that way, and the Washington State Noxious Weed Control Board has listed them as a class C noxious weed. There are better things to grow in their place, and that's exactly what I'm going to do.

I've made some good progress these past few days. Later this week, I hope to get my hands on a friend's chicken coop that he's no longer using. For trade, I've promised a good, home-cooked lasagne lunch (he's single) and some pie. The chickens will be the first part of the mini-project. I've already got the southwest corner cleared out to build a pen for the coop.

I've been told that my lot used to be part of an orchard for a place called Manresa Castle, a few blocks away from my property, so you never know what you'll dig up. I unearthed a two-point buck skull when the house was being built, and Tim dug up a high school photo ID once. He handed it to me and said, "Do you know this person?" I live in a small town, so it turned out that I did. It was a friend's daughter's that was stolen from her quite a few years ago. Anyway, the bent fork came out of the designated chicken pen area, so it inspired me to call my mini-farm "Bent Fork Farm." Mostly though, I just dig up weeds, blackberry roots, and rocks.

A couple of pictures of the southwest corner and south end of the lot, and you get the idea. The area covered with tarp and newspaper is roughly the area of the forthcoming chicken pen. Note the large rock. Cool, huh? There's a couple of smaller ones behind it that I'm going to enclose in the pen for the chickens to hang out on. Imagine raised beds for growing vegetables and berries.

Even though I find digging in the dirt addicting, especially when the ground is so soft, I eventually have to come back inside. To keep the faith when the sun goes away, as it surely will, I've been checking out some great books from the local library on organic gardening. The other day, I found Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces by Gayla Trail from yougrowgirl.com. She's definitely my kind of woman.