Saturday, June 04, 2011

Attempting some farming

Last year I sold my house in SF to buy some property in Sonoma county and pursue my crazy dream of having a sort of mini-farm.

Turns out that growing stuff - even just keeping existing stuff alive - is not as simple as you might think. I feel like my attempts so far could provide more than enough material for a new "City Slickers" movie. It could be called "Check out the city slickers making fools of themselves trying to farm".

In March I drove up to the property to get the propane inspected, and found several distressing puddles of goo on the ground in the orchard area. It looked like a gang of teenagers got wasted in my yard and puked all over the place.



Turns out that this is a harmless fungus that breaks down the mulch that lays on top of the soil, and that it's sort of a good thing. But it looks gross and my dog keeps sniffing it suspiciously.


Then in April the grasses and weeds had grown so tall that the house could barely be seen anymore, and we figured it would be nice for our neighbors if our house could be a bit more presentable and less like the Boo Radley house.



So we bought a professional grade weedwhacker and went to town on those grasses. Well it turns out that weedwhacking is a very inefficient way to clear three acres, and it took us an entire day to just clear around the house. We ended up having to ask a neighbor to mow the rest with a tractor, which I guess is what the non-city-slickers use.

Then we decided to plant some decorative plants in front of the house and add a new drip irrigation line to water them. But our drip system controller couldn't handle two lines, so the new one never turned on, and $300 of plants died within a week. Silly city slickers!


Then in May, we were pruning the rose bushes and I reached down to grab one of them and sliced my arm open on the surgical-quality pruning shears. I learned that pruning shears are no joke, and that slicing through skin sounds remarkably like tearing fabric.



Last learning moment was when I added new drip emitters to the new irrigation line. When I turned the water on to test them, they shot water 15 feet into the air instead of dribbling slowly into the soil. Lesson learned? There is a difference between regular emitters and pressure-compensating emitters. Who knew? I thought I was cool for figuring out how to put the emitter into the line at all... having to select the right emitter threw me for a loop.

But I gotta say, it's all worth it when you see your little plants start to blossom and grow. These are the first leaves budding on the grapevines in the spring.



It's so cool to watch them emerge from their hibernation, and then go buckwild as the days warm up. I swear I am now pruning these things back every few weeks. There are even tiny little grapes on a lot of the vines! I think that all the cuts and scrapes and blows to the ego will be forgotten when we are sitting on the patio this summer, eating our own fruit, and foolishly planning what additional stuff we will plant in the future.