We bought the house in April of 2006 it looked like this:
It was a fixer-upper on a corner lot. It was in a great neighborhood, close to schools, a library, the bike path. Then we birthed twins, painted the house, pulled out the overgrown bushes, replaced some windows, built a fence, built a patio, had another kid, read Michael Pollan , read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, read Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn , read Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, rode Bike the Barns (twice), got tired of kohlrabi in our CSA box, stopped subscribing to a CSA, went to the farmer’s market so often that the farmers know Mr. Brown on a first name basis, built a raised bed in the front yard, cut down the crab(Crap) apple trees, installed rain-barrels, wanted to get chickens, looked into getting chickens, decided chickens were not for us, hired Madison Groundworks, brewed beer, made chili, invited our friends and their favorite shovel over and turned this:
into this.
The kids showed amazing stamina and played in cold, drizzly weather for 8 hours. They came in briefly to use the bathroom and eat, but they tirelessly rescued worms from the old raised bed and relocated them to their new, bigger home.
It’s a bit unsatisfying to build a garden and then immediately put it to bed. But now we have all winter to inventory our seeds and perfect our plant wish list , find black current bushes, asparagus, and quince trees.We will spend the coldest nights debating about which heirloom tomatoes are sweeter. We have all winter to dream of green things to come.
This project is our 10th anniversary present to each other. Tin is the traditional gift….think tin watering can. Happy Anniversary, Farmer Brown. I love you more than dirt.
