You Will Love These Folks!
June 18, 2011 at 2:12 am
Imagine a space one fifth of an acre in size, about the average city lot, 66×132 feet. Now of course on that space is a little house, a garage, driveway, paths et. So when you subtract all of those you end up with one tenth of an acre. Gosh doesn’t sound like a very big space does it? And you are right, it isn’t a very big space.
But with a great deal of effort and determination that small space has done something really really amazing. In 2010 that ONE TENTH of an acre,( just .1) produced 7,030 pounds of fruits and vegetables! WOW! NO GMO crop could possibly do that! NO Chemical Company can produce those kinds of yields in modern American Agriculture in any way shape or form! They do not even come close!
BECAUSE in PER ACRE amounts it totals: 70,300 pounds. No current big farm agriculture can possibly produce 35 TONS of fruits and veggies on an acre of land!
NOW, imagine if every person that could possibly do this, would do it. Where ever they live. Even if they didn’t manage these ginormous yields, but just think if every one grew their own salad, potatoes and green beans?
Think of how beautiful our cities would become with all that green. Think of how much pollution of all sorts would be reduced. How about whole city blocks of people getting together and landscaping the whole neighborhood together, with everyone sharing the produce of the different trees? That alone would be priceless.
One of the things America has surely lost in most places: a sense of place, of belonging, a local food system, a sense of caring and community. This is a way of beginning to get it back.
The Dervaes family have a number of websites, all of which you can access from this link.
Now around here, it is hotter than blazes and half the state of AZ seems like it is burning up with no rain or let up in sight. So I will dream of fall and winter and early next spring….hopefully the next pea crop will be as good as this ones was:
But with a great deal of effort and determination that small space has done something really really amazing. In 2010 that ONE TENTH of an acre,( just .1) produced 7,030 pounds of fruits and vegetables! WOW! NO GMO crop could possibly do that! NO Chemical Company can produce those kinds of yields in modern American Agriculture in any way shape or form! They do not even come close!
BECAUSE in PER ACRE amounts it totals: 70,300 pounds. No current big farm agriculture can possibly produce 35 TONS of fruits and veggies on an acre of land!
NOW, imagine if every person that could possibly do this, would do it. Where ever they live. Even if they didn’t manage these ginormous yields, but just think if every one grew their own salad, potatoes and green beans?
Think of how beautiful our cities would become with all that green. Think of how much pollution of all sorts would be reduced. How about whole city blocks of people getting together and landscaping the whole neighborhood together, with everyone sharing the produce of the different trees? That alone would be priceless.
One of the things America has surely lost in most places: a sense of place, of belonging, a local food system, a sense of caring and community. This is a way of beginning to get it back.
The Dervaes family have a number of websites, all of which you can access from this link.
Now around here, it is hotter than blazes and half the state of AZ seems like it is burning up with no rain or let up in sight. So I will dream of fall and winter and early next spring….hopefully the next pea crop will be as good as this ones was:
Here are the King of the Garden Limas, finally! I picked 1 1/2 pounds the other day, which shelled out to about a quart of beans, cooked them up with bacon & onion, delish! Even Liberty liked them.
Here a Trombocino squash {seeds available from www.freedomseeds.com} hides in the Red Currant tomato
The bed at the bottom of the picture has baby carrots, the one farther away, Golden Globe turnips and parsnips. The bigger green plants are hollyhocks.
Broccoli and cauliflower seedlings wait in the wings.
Kabocha squash volunteers have run over quite a bit of the garden. The one in the front isn’t quite ready to pick. The ones in the back weighed 7 & 10 pounds each. The other one is twice as big, can’t wait to see how much it weighs.
Lovely Hopi purple pod beans. These are yummy as fresh or dried shellies.
Bean soup, potatoe soup, dilly beans, green beans, pickled peppers, tomato sauce, pickled eggs… there’s more you can’t see, blueberries, apple sauce, jams, jellies, pickles, sauces, marinades. This year not everything was grown at home. I took advantage of terrific sales and the farmer’s market. But next year most of the cupboards will be filled with home grown goodness. Also not in this picture are the things that I’ve dried, plums, apples, raisins, tomatoes, jerky, herbs for seasoning and tea.
Heavenly Blue morning glories cover an arch by the front gate.
The small sunflowers are still blooming. They attract a lot of butterflies and bees of all kinds.
One of the surviving Heritage raspberries has put on a few fruits.
The Moon & Stars watermelon is going strong, tho no fruit yet.
Elephant Ears & Canna lily
The Jicama are going strong, just hope they are making nice big roots!
Can’t hardly walk beside the house for all the plants out there.
Delicata squash almost ready to pick.
The eggplants in pots on the patio are doing very well.
A couple of Rio Grande pepper plants loaded with fruit.
The back garden. The two empy beds in the middle are for carrots and parsnips.
Kentucky Wonder green beans cover a 5′ wire cage. So far it’s been so hot they haven’t set any beans, but I found one yesterday so we should have lots of them soon.
Apache Purple pod beans cover part of the greenhouse. They are just beginning to bloom.
Cucumbers & beans. I don’t think we’ll get many more cukes tho, they are severly infested with aphids. I think I should probably just pull them out.
Four o’clocks bloom by the front gate.
16 baby artichoke plants in their pots. Just not sure where I’m going to plant them!
The 11′ Lima beans, which still have yeilded no beans.
Heavenly Blue morning glories cover part of the greenhouse. You can just see one of the Kabocha squash in the leaves at the lower left.
Here you can see that corner of the greenhouse on the right, then the baby corn, the row of paste tomatoes and on the left some cucumbers and an apple tree still in it’s pot.
Yesterday and again today it is raining. Actually when I took this pic through the front door it was also hailing. We got .4″ of rain yesterday and it is very dark and rainy again today. We were going to go to the lizard walk at the arboretum today, but don’t think that is going to happen. This rain looks like it might hang out all day. It is 9 AM and it is as dark outside as if the sun were nearly down! And I’m loving it and so it the garden.
An apple of unknown variety.
In spite of the earlier rodent attack, the cantaloupes on the compost pile are making a come back. This one will be ready soon.
A view of the back garden, with hollyhocks and sunflowers.
These are Polish Linquisa paste tomatoes. Almost ready for makin’ sauce!
That roque squash plant turns out to be a Kabocha.
A yard long bean. They do love the heat.
Double Yield cucumbers from www.freedomseeds.com are bloomin up a storm
Huckleberries. I’ve never grown this before. They are loaded with fruit and while it is black it doesn’t seem to be ready to pick yet.
The front yard grain patch. In the front the small seeded sunflowers are beginning to bloom. In the back ground the bloody butcher corn, popping sorhgum and broom corn.
This is the raspberry bed that was overseeded to buckwheat. I discovered I probably planted the buckwheat too thick and with the heat it was taking a lot of water to keep it from wilting. So I pulled it up, picked off a few ripe seeds and laid it back down, along with the wild sunflowers, as mulch for the raspberries. We will probably have more buckwheat and sunflowers later on when the monsoon gets around to giving up some rain.
The moon & stars watermelon plants are taking off and outgrowing their little cages.
No Vacancy. The new rabbit condo is full with our 4 does in place. When the weather cools off I’ll build another like it for the 2 bucks, which will also give me space to hold fryers over if I need to.
The greywater filter tub, with canna lilly, elephant ears and kabocha squash.
The Jicama are really taking off now that it is really hot. I just don’t know why the leaves are scorching like this.
More ‘maters. These are the Imur Prior Beta, nice 1 ounce fruits.
The yellow peppers are Rio Grande, with a nice mild heat. There are some green bells hiding in the back ground.
Miracle with her sunflower plant in my back garden. The bed on the left is the greenhouse with snap peas. The one directly behind her was planted last fall with carrots, turnips, beets and purple broccoli. The only thing left are the beets which will come out soon so we can plant the baby corn. The trellises in the background aremore peas.