Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

If you’d told me a year ago that I'd be asking my friends and neighbors to collect cardboard boxes, newspapers, and leaves and scouring Craigslist for hay, alfalfa, and manure, I would have looked at you and ramped up my resting bitch face. But that’s who I am now. One of the most major goals we had when choosing to move from a 600 square foot city apartment to a 4.5 acre mountainous property was to establish our own “mini-farm.” That means growing our own food, managing chickens (though we will not be eating them), and eventually adding goats to our brood.

The growing conditions here at 8,000+ feet are less than ideal, so this past summer I took a “high altitude permaculture gardening” class at the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute in Basalt, CO. Though it sounds like all I did was learn to cultivate marijuana, I promise only a few minutes of the 2 weeks-long class even mentioned it. I was lucky to find the institute and attending was more than life changing. I was frustrated by teachers and books who didn’t get what it means to turn rocky dirt into fertile soil, and how to make the most of just a few weeks of a growing season. The institute’s founder, Jerome, has been at it since the 70s and grows the most amazing figs you’ll ever taste alongside bananas in a passive solar, climate battery controlled greenhouse. That’s a long string of words few people are familiar with, but my guess is that you’ve never had a banana grown in Colorado, which goes to show you the magic Jerome is creating. The class set the foundation (and gave us the much needed directions) for how Daniel and I are going to build our vision.

When we finally got settled into the house (after moving out of SF, driving from California to Colorado, and then oh yeah, getting married, all in two weeks), the first rule of business was to start sheet mulching the terraces off the front of our house. It’s a principle Jerome follows, but Daniel and I went more in depth with Paul Gautschi’s Back To Eden. In order to grow anything, you have to turn dirt into soil, which in this Rocky Mountain terrain is like Jesus turning water into wine, and I have the photos to prove it. The easiest (meaning least back breaking) way to do that is to build on top of what already exists with layers of carbon and nitrogen materials: cardboard, newspaper, alfalfa, manure, compost, etc. For two weekends Daniel and I hunched over the front yard putting down layer after layer of all these collected materials. Sometimes, when it comes to growing things, or just tidying up the yard, it’s hard to tell the difference. Luckily, this project gave us immediate satisfaction. What was once dry, lifeless dirt dotted with nasty looking hardy mountain weeds was now a pleasant landscape ready to host life. Our hope is that the snowpack this winter helps everything to decompose quickly so that we have some nice soil to work with come spring. But maybe the snow will melt and take all the layers with it. You never know with these things.

IT'S ALSO CALLED "LASAGNA MULCH," BUT YOU'D GET REAL SICK IF YOU TOOK A MOUTHFUL OF THIS. 

This past weekend, Daniel and I got a firsthand lesson on why they’re called the Rocky Mountains. One of the prizes I brought home from CRMPI is their own species of Russian mulberry tree, whose fruit is divine. We needed to get it in the ground so it can acclimate before the snow hits, so after moving 6 wheelbarrow loads of rocks from the side of the house, we decided we still had enough energy to dig the hole. It’s going to be simple, right? I think it was the third time Daniel drove the shovel into the hard ground that we hit the first of about 800 seemingly unmovable rocks. We took turns digging and using the pickaxe, and while I rested. I thought, “Rocks, I get it. You’ve been there for millions of years, but please just see this as your chance to get some air and a little change of scenery.” It took us an hour to dig a hole that was about 1.5 feet by 1.5 feet. And it was an absolute bitch. There’s literally no other way to describe it. It fucking sucked. And that was just one tree. We have many, many more to plant.

I LOOK BADASS, BUT I'M TIRED AS HELL. 

Nothing is easy, nothing is certain, and be patient are the biggest lessons even just these few first weeks of toiling outside have taught me. And as the temperatures drop, and the days get shorter, I’ll take this mantra indoors with me. One way to get the most out of Colorado’s short growing season (Until I can build my dream greenhouse. I KNOW. WHO AM I.) is to start a bunch of seeds indoors, so they’re primed and ready to plant once the last frost has passed. For the past two weeks, I’ve been diligently collecting seeds, pots and soil, and planting: tomatoes, basil, peppers, onions, lavender, sage, thyme, brussels sprouts, broccoli, rosemary, and oregano, and I still want to do more. Some of the individual seeds are the size of pepper granules. They’re so tiny you feel like you’re crossing your fingers on one hand and sprinkling some invisible hope over the soil. Because the plants need sun for the next several months (The formula sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Seed + soil + sun + water = plant! Like I said before, nothing is easy.), I took over a corner in the basement that gets the most sunlight.

OUR BASEMENT IS NOW A GROWHOUSE OF THE LEGAL KIND. 

Some of the seeds should start germinating and sprouting in a few weeks, but in today’s ASAP society, the wait feels excruciating. I check on the plants daily, making sure the soil is moist, measuring the soil temperature, and always looking for signs of life. Maybe I’ll have a wild jungle that I can barely manage by the time spring rolls around, or maybe I’ll have 75+ pots of barren soil. Nothing is certain.