Any Day Now

With every passing week it is feeling more like an impending deployment. You keep packing your and then unpacking, because your name wasn’t on the flight list this time. In the same vein the weather keeps warming up, I keep measuring and prepping the beds while my wife brings the transplants out to harden. Then we get another frost warning and 4 days later we are trying to get ready again.

So what to do in the meantime while the plane is getting loaded only to not allow you on again. Well we have been researching historical agriculture practices, validating upcoming meeting, conducting farm visits with a few Veterans, coordinating the delivery of 8-10 Ancona ducks for our poultry enclosure and help my wife build raised beds and cold frame boxes so we can get something in the ground this week. That’s often the challenge this time of year, because usually we have too much to do and not enough time. The raised beds and cold frames were built from reclaimed wood we got from market place for the cost of picking them up. They were built 2′ wide x 6′ long and will be placed along the existing fence with our southern neighbors. This offers us three key benefits for our family; 1. Less bending for my wife whom has a bad back, with the plants she wants to grow, 2. Solid enclosure for root aggressive perennials like asparagus, raspberries and blackberries, and 3. When we level the side yard they will act as an effective retaining wall. We have built 3 so far and will need to make about 3 more before we are done.

You might ask why am I writing about this, and how does putting in raise beds relate to LFV’s mission? The answer is simple Urban agriculture is a key part of our mission and experiencing or demonstrating this kind AG will be critical for future classes. Additionally, many of our current associates (to include my wife) and future students have physical limitations from past injuries and we will need to find accommodation for them. So how better to prepare for those then by incorporating them in our current models, even at a small scale of a back yard.

Because we aren’t raising large numbers of livestock this year we have been allowed to work on some of these smaller projects. But we will soon have no time as the spring hits and quickly moves into summer. So leading into this week we pack our bags again and with the temperature set to reach 72 degrees tomorrow we will put out the starts and turn the older wheat field for our nightshades soon to go in. Until then keep busy and get ready to fly. Deven Little