Farm 2021 — A Reflection

It’s been my third year growing in my backyard. We started with herbs, simply plants that were already grown. Then I transitioned to microgreens, after seeing how simple they were with the right tools and seeds. Not long after that, I tackled vegetables.

Here I am now, having apprenticed under a vegetable growing programme and done a whole year since on my own, I have to say it’s become an invaluable pastime. In it, its survival skill and incredibly resourceful skill to have under my pocket, I know that even jobless or without societal infrastructure, I can grow food. I know even with a job, with societal infrastructure, I can grow better food than the grocery store can offer.

No, I cannot outdo the grocery store, it was never my intention. In fact, initially I thought to myself, what was the value in growing for myself, in that substitence, perhaps find an innovation that could lead to combating climate change, reducing the carbon footprint of agriculture, and turning the tide on industrial farming and meat factories.

However, it is not to be so. The market and startup industries in and another where I’m from is locked in grid, under key. Vertical farms battle for market space while revealing no cooperative information. Partnerships to grab customer attention, better indoor grown food, has led to a general lack of respect for the grower’s almanac and intellect itself.

If you want my opinion, that is that. It’s that we’re nowhere near the progress needed to be made to get vertical farming mainstream. In reality, the cost of these projects are way beyond the effectiveness of market product fit and price.

Consumers love the grassroots farmers market movement in that their food is fresh, valued, cherished, mastered, and not mass-produced. No machine or factory could outdo this for the next 50 years. And so, it’s counterproductive to try to push the industrial mass-produce agenda any further.

In fact, I highly value the grassroots local farmer relationship, where you can even talk dietary needs and nutritional value. A local grower can answer your questions about the food that you eat. And once it goes from farm to table, it’s fresh, and immediate, the taste will make you less of a carnivore and lower your craving of refined sugar, processed food, salts, and red meats. It mellows it and keeps your diet rooted in the fundamentals of soil, vegetables, and foods packed in nutrition.

Grow it yourself or buy it from a local farmer. Try it, you won’t regret the adventure of tasting fresh carrot, beet, and spinach. Mass-market vegetables simply do not taste as appetizing and has historically been pushing you away from greens. Try it, what do you have to lose? Your stomach can take it, and if you don’t like it, you can always go back to your original diet. Does not hurt to taste-test some real change. You don’t need to be a foodie, you just need to be hungry. And that is the power of the consumer, it is your choice with your money what you will eat tonight. :)

As for my third year of growing in my backyard, this has got to be the most successful year to date. I anticipated environmental conditions like daylight, sun exposure, rainfall, seasonal pests, but most of all, I went ham on good soil.

I purchased bags of compost, finished manure (doesn’t stink by the time you’re buying it, I promise), and fresh vegetable mix soil. Even though I was being a bit of a brand loyalist, picking soils for their ‘packaging’ rather than nutrients or thorough homework done. I compensated by taking my completed soils (in the early spring) for a paid official soil test, one that gardeners, farmers, and real soil advocates would do every year. And getting that chemical composition back just — downright confused the shit outta me!

But that was the fun part. That was my assignment, to understand it.

And so, in the end, all I really digested from it was my soil was very fertile and ripe for food production. I chewed each and every number of pH, lime index, Ca, Mg, Mg/K, Na, BS%, Al, Boron, Copper, Moisture %, like the vigorous, utter n00b I was and probably forgot most of what I read.

Still, that’s the process, that’s the homework. I cared enough, so I made it happen.

I was good to go, even though I still didn’t have full grasp over the numbers. So in the seeds went, and out came the usual patterns of germination, true leaves, into young plants, pests deterring, further fertilizing, manual pollination or waiting for bees, and finally fruit picking. That whole adventure took place over the course of several months, but was most concentrated in the peak of the climate in my area, May, June, July.

Labor was cheap, as it was simply my leisure time away from my desk.

The Sun is alot tho, the heat is often uncomfortable. But when I’m there, hands in the dirt, I try to remember, the reward at the end. And also the brutality of winter coming in 6 months and I needed to beat that. I also needed to respect the season that was given to me. To grow whatever I could, to the best of the time and effort I could give it.

Three mistakes I made:

1. Seeds were planted too close, I did not thin. I over-sowed, and this encouraged plenty of pests (and their problems of overpopulation with it), crowded crops, and likely produced more vegetation than fruit in some aspects. E.g. carrots, tomatoes, beets, bell peppers.
2. Irrigation lines. I definitely got the experiment off to a good start, even though I wouldn’t recommend PE pipes to anyone, simply cause of the dreaded setup process (hard to put pieces together). Instead, a diode in my Raspberry PI setup dead from heat stress, and disabled my watering lines for the latter half of July. I did not get around to fixing it, preferring to water myself. Often I had to water the top of crops anyway to cool it. But in the future, I will stop mistake 1 and mistake 2, and I think it will be less wet down below, and hassle-free watering. I will also get spare diodes and keep them out of the sun. It’s not worth it to burn out a chip or worse, start a fire.
3. A mistake I made was with my garlic. A disappointment for sure as a weed spread throughout the topsoil of my garlic unbeknowst to me under I dug it up, and it choked my garlic and stole all its essential nutrients, stunting them and they failed before end of August.

Three things I did well:

1. Kept the squirrels out this fall. lol. No, that’s not a top 3. But its funny. Good work, dog.
   No, instead, the thing I did well was actually pest control. I anticipated the appearance of leaf miners, pill bugs, earwigs. And largely kept them under control. I lost the battle in the end due to my own allotment of time. However, I would say I know how to keep the bug problem away for good next year. By simply NOT allowing mistake 1 and 2 to happen. So I would say I did well, because I learned critical things for future years to come!
2. Tomatoes, Spinach, Kale, and Swiss Chard, Scallions all went well. Massive compliments to me and my girlfriend for pushing it all over the top! Well done!
3. Not doing too much, but challenging myself to grow new, grow more, and stay at the edge of comfort zone. The macro portion of growing is a plan early, plan well, and execute well. However, the micro portion is an intuitive thing and is utterly stimulating for the mind and soul. I enjoy estimating, guessing, trying, doing things on a whim, making decisions on the fly and that’s the best part of the day-to-day part of growing, is these micro observations and decisions that guide me through my garden to perfect the craft of growing. Well done!

Three crops I’m most proud of this year:

1. My tomatoes for sure
2. Swiss chard, spinach, scallions, these were all very fruitful.
3. Carrots. they were actually sizeable this year.

Three crops I need to improve on for next time:

I would say all of them. NTS: Check my Farm Record and you’ll know what to work on.

What is coming 2022?

In 2022, I am moving residence. So in this year, I cannot say what I will be growing. Probably some low-commitment high-rewards like scallions. Things in grow bags so I can keep them in low maintenance.

I did not put any garlic down this year, so I likely won’t get seeing this crop next year. 😔

Unless I do it now… But I am a bit preoccupied with other things at the moment.

I know I cannot plant anything in this backyard anymore. It’s days are over.

So next year, look forward to new varieties as I’ve finished most of my seeds (or given up on others that I don’t like to grow/eat). So new things next year, probably spinach again 😃

Thank you 2021, thank you my teacher Derek.

Signing off…