Has it been more than a year since I posted? I'm not sure what happened to rest of 2010, or to the first quarter of 2011, but let's just pretend that my last post was really only a few days ago and not more than a year ago, shall we?
Getting right to what's important, it's tomato time at my house. Because the winter crops -- romaine lettuce, sugar snap peas and a form of Italian broccoli -- were still giving us very delicious produce, we were reluctant to rip them out just yet.
On the other hand, you'll recall that I'm married to Tomato Zealot. Dennis can only be put off for so long until his internal pressure to plant tomatoes mounts to such a degree that he explodes into action. This year, the explosion took an unexpected form.
With the raised beds in our backyard mostly full of still fruitful crops, and with me holding firm that we could not convert the small patch of grass in our backyard to tomato fields -- at least not until our elderly dog transitioned to the great farm in the sky -- Dennis had a space problem. But then again, not really. We actually owned other usable square footage; it was just planted with grass and referred to as the front lawn. We were allowing convention and a vague willingness to act in unison with our neighbors dictate its use. The moment for front-yard agriculture had arrived.
Over three weekends in March and April, Dennis channeled his inner construction worker and set about building, installing, and filling a very usable raised bed with compost and soil. He situated it on what had been a rectangle of water-sucking grass in a sunny patch of street-side land. Did I mention irrigation? Dennis tapped into our existing sprinkler system and plumbed a
line into the raised bed, so the tomatoes could drink wisely from individual little drippers.Who knew he had it in him? I'm so proud.
An interesting and unforeseen side benefit to this project was the neighbor contact it continues to generate. First, we met Gwen and her husband, an elderly couple who, as it turns out, adopted the stray Siamese-calico kitty we used to feed -- news that allayed our fears that kitty had became coyote fodder. Then we met a stroller mom, who told us about her quince jam, which led me to talk about making plum jam and grape jam, all of which will likely lead to future jam trades.
Dennis also has reported lots of nods from drivers and several curious stares. But so far, everyone has appeared positive, at least they're feigning support. As far as I can tell, we are setting trend with front-yard vegetables. A few houses have fruit trees in the front, and other neighbors have ripped out their lawns and installed drought-tolerant plants. But I have yet to see any other produce-producing raised beds in any neighborhood front yards.
My guess is that we won't be stopping at only one box, that expanding to the front was a move long overdue. Dare I say it -- I'll try to keep you posted.
