In the Beginning...

For as far back as I can trace, my family has farmed.  My father lived and worked on the family farm in Kentucky until he was about 12, and then he moved with his parents to Chicago and lived the rest of his life in and around the city.  The remaining farming family members soon left Kentucky for more opportunities in urban areas as well, and though the land stayed in the family name, maintained by my great aunt and uncle, the taxes to keep the land became too great a burden and it was sold.  Hundreds of years of Watsons living and farming this land on the hills in Caney, Kentucky had come to an end.

I am the first generation never to have farmed.  Last year I bought a house in April, my first home, and grew a few vegetables: tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and zucchini.  It was highly successful and I enjoyed the concept of making and caring for my food.  I've been plagued with rare illnesses in my lifetime, and due to my odd health history, I have tried to regulate what goes into my body by limiting my intake of processed and chemically-rife foods.  Most of my meat comes from local, organic farmers, I make all my own bread and bread products, sauces, baked goods, and often my own ice cream (from raw milk).  Each summer I go to pick-your-own farms and stock up on organic pumpkins, strawberries and cherries, which I store in a chest freezer for year-long enjoyment.  It's amazing how easy it is throw together a delicious cherry pie or phenomenal pumpkin cookies from scratch, made from fruit I myself picked, cleaned and stored months earlier.  Being in control of my own food brings much gratification.

This year I'm much more ambitious.  This year, I'm starting a mini-farm with the hopes of not only growing all the produce I will need for a year, but I'd also like to have enough to share with friends and coworkers, as well as the local food pantry.  It took all winter, pouring over my favorite seed catalog, and I finally chose all the varieties of heirloom vegetables I wanted to grow.  The seeds arrived in February, and I am now sorting through them to decide what needs to go into dirt first.  Among the vegetables will be beneficial flowers and some herbs, things to attract bees, birds, and hummingbirds, some edible themselves.  I'm working on designing the raised beds, organizing where everything will go within the beds, and how to align the beds in my yard.  My notebook is filling quickly with research on natural pest repellents, companion planting, and kitchen counter composting.  This project, this lifestyle, has not only filled most of my time, but it is quickly filling most of my house, and an unexpected filling of my heart.

Maybe I was meant for farming.  Maybe it's genetic.  Maybe this is the healing activity I need to do for myself, inside and out.  This is the start of documenting this process.  Growing.