Come Play in My Yard

When I was in school, we learned the proper way to describe the tools and components of the horticulture trade. For example, "dirt" is something you clean up with a vacuum or wipe off your shoes; "soil" is the medium for growing healthy plants. When you talk about putting plants in dirt, it connotes the wrong idea, and that isn't immediately obvious if you haven't thought about it. Soil is more appropriate because it better signifies the rich ecosystem of minerals and organisms and fungi and decaying matter and water and air that provide the ideal medium for plant growth.

Another example that sticks out is "whacking," be it weed whacking, or whacking limbs off a tree. Just like talking about dirt, it doesn't sound professional. A word like "whack" implies sloppiness and unskilled labor, that someone isn't taking the work seriously or doesn't care about the health of those plants. When you have professional training in landscaping, or even just in general, it's simply more accurate to refer to these terms by their proper names -- a line/string trimmer, or pruning a limb from a tree.

The above instances are good things to keep in mind, and my point is not to get overly pedantic about semantics. Being a little more precise with our language is always a good goal, especially in skilled trades.

But there are phrases commonly directed at me and my colleagues that I find more frustrating than a pet peeve. "Would you like to come play in my yard?" "You can practice in my garden." "You've been playing in the dirt all day." I'm talking specifically about people who are requesting me to work on their property, or acknowledging that I've been at work all day. I know that in some cases it's said innocently, that it's just something that hasn't occurred to most people to use more precise and respectful language. That's why I'm taking a moment to write about this. If you call a plumber to fix something, you don't ask, "Hey, wanna come play with my toilet?" If your roof has a leak, you wouldn't ask the professional, "Would you like to practice on my roof?"

I want to address the inherent disrespect in that kind of language, and I want to challenge people to think differently about this kind of outdoor work. There unfortunately exists a lot of conscious and unconscious judgment against those who work in labor-intensive outdoor jobs like landscaping. People expect a lot of free or next-to-free services when it comes to the garden (or worse, food production). If people use devaluing language like "playing in my yard," they can justify paying us less, or nothing at all. For the people who've bothered to educate themselves in the field, this is insulting. This is still a job, even if I happen to enjoy it. I'm not coming over to socialize at a BBQ. Even if a person didn't have any knowledge whatsoever about horticulture, their time, their labor, and the wear and tear on their body is still worth respect, appropriate payment, and proper language. That's an important point, because landscaping work is brutal to the body. If you doubt just how hard it is, I invite you to come play in my yard.

I'm not saying that a person shouldn't ever ask for free help in the garden. I have volunteer horticulture projects that I work on, and I do help friends as I'm able to. But the casual language and attitude is something that could be improved when it comes to paying for services. I recognize that I feel even more strongly about this because my body has not been cooperative since my surgery, and the pain and other physical and psychological issues have made going back into the field full time nearly impossible. So if someone is requesting that I work for them, using cutesy phrases like "playing in the yard," I get a little annoyed. It has a demeaning impact, whether or not that was the intention. Now you know.

So unless you're inviting me over to play a game of badminton or to practice my aim at archery, please retire these disrespectful phrases, and help promote professionalism in the field.

Here's the Awesome Part of 2016

The previous post was really a bummer, but last year wasn't all bad. In fact, some pretty incredible things happened. Here are my gratitudes:

I started the year off getting ibogaine treatment, which deserves a post all of its own (in fact, I've got a whole website about it if you're curious). It was a phenomenal experience that helped me break through some of my depression and anxiety.

In February, I was feeling energized and decided to volunteer again at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show in Seattle.

    

After the show, I really wanted to donate some of my time to a gardening project, and Caera's new workplace at Compass Health provided the perfect opportunity. I thought an herb/flower spiral would fit nicely in a long-neglected 10'x10' space outside her window.

   

I didn't have time to go back to the Red Barn community farm plot, but I did carve out a little time to build some flower and veggie beds at the place where we're renting.

Most importantly, on October 8, Caera and I got married! I'm so happy to be sharing my life with this amazing woman. I think this picture says it all:

And in other good news, we got accepted into Housing Hope's Team Home Building program, which means we're framing houses with seven other families in Arlington. By the end of 2017, we'll be homeowners!

First Completed Season at Red Barn Community Farm

As the days get shorter and the harvest peters out, I can look back at our first completed season at Red Barn Community Farm with pride, humility, and some exhaustion. Caera and I worked hard on our 40'x40' plot, building six 4'x16' beds out of cinder blocks and wood, starting a bed for the hoop house, completing an entirely enclosed 16'x16' space for our berry patch, hauling in soil (that was an adventure in and of itself), amending the soil with compost and a fertilizer blend we mixed based on Steve Solomon's recommendation from Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades, and planting lots and lots of seeds and starts. Over the summer, we also acquired a 275-gallon water tote, which we elevated for future use in a drip irrigation system. We had wanted to fence off our entire plot, as the deer were a persistent problem, but we couldn't get the materials fast enough. Nonetheless, despite our battles with deer, bugs, supply transportation, materials cost, out-of-control weeds, a summer-long drought, and a brutal wind storm, we had quite an impressive harvest.

 Let's take a look:

Jami riding the tractor.

Working the soil was tough, but we had a good attitude.

After many ridiculous trips back and forth between our home and the plot with buckets full of soil stuffed into our sedans, a friend let us borrow his truck to finish the job.

We hauled a lot of soil. Here we're in the process of filling up the berry patch.

Making soil angels in a half-built raised bed.

Fours beds complete, and starting to fill them...

Beds are finished, and seeds and starts are in the ground.

That's the berry patch in the background, and this bed with tomato starts will eventually be inside a hoop house.

Finished berry patch with chicken wire fencing, bird netting, and a simple PVC pipe gate.

Why do we need so much fencing? This is why. Unfortunately we put the berry plants in the ground before the fence was finished. The deer ate the developing fruit and a lot of the branches. They don't even care about proper pruning technique!

This is my sweetie Caera. She's very happy after supporting the LWIT plant sale.

This is Caera's first large-scale attempt at growing food. We're stoked to be working on it together.

The start of our flower bed.

Our flower bed took off! The pollinators loved it, and we brought home so many bouquets of cut flowers.

Our kitchen alter to the Irish goddess Airmed, with flowers and food from the plot.

Strawflowers have become a staple in my flower gardens. Xerochrysum bracteatum for the win!

Well-used moving boxes from last year. I think their final destination is appropriate: suppressing weeds in between our raised beds, decomposing into the earth.

Gooseberries that became deer snacks.

I set up two propagation stations in the laundry room.

Emerging seedlings.

The house we're renting came with a greenhouse. A lot of these plants were are from last year, and were neglected a bit while I was moving all the time. To my surprise, a lot of stuff came back.

A nice little pot of yarrow came back.

I thought all my perennials were goners after last year's moving chaos, but the Pagan Purples Delphinium popped up in the spring. Love the color.

I grafted my first apple tree during my 2013 hort class. Since then it's sadly remained unpruned, a bit neglected, and moving around from place to place in a pot. This year it started to fruit, and I let it just for funzies.

My boss at Ironwood gave me some mystery daylilies in the spring. Score! Don't they look delicious? I mean pretty?

I brought home some columbine for my sweetie. We grew it in a pot that's visible from our bedroom window.

Backyard pots.

Since this isn't our own property, we aren't able to do much landscape design. Container gardening is our compromise.

Back at the plot, we upgraded our two 55-gallon rain barrels to one 275-gallon water tote elevated four feet above the ground. My intention next year is to hook up a drip irrigation system.

My tomato bed turned into a hedge. Once again, this is what happens when you don't prune or stake your tomatoes.

My magic beanstalk is working. Next stop: Coin Heaven!

Flower power! (Okay, I'll stop with the Super Mario Bros. references.)

Towers of quinoa. First time growing this crop.

We had lots of colorful harvests.

So much food. This makes me happy.

Proud mother of twins.

Tomatoes and basil. You know where this is going. I'm sorry, is my Italian showing? ;P

Well-pollinated corn. This is a first for me.

Gardening is more fun with loved ones.

Herb garden.