Embracing the Sun — The Suburban Farm

Last fall we scrapped all the beds, except the strangely successful asparagus bed, on the side of the house. The combination of years of failing to produce much and the beech(?) tree that grows ever larger shading more of the side yard we decided to just scrap them. This area is where we do most of our outside hanging anyway. It's next to the back porch, home of all the tantalizing outdoor toys, it's where we keep the grill, and it is the home of the mostest awesome climbing tree EVAR (Zane's words, not mine) a fig tree that doesn't produce much but provides nice shade in the summer and is one of Zane's most favorite places. This weekend we're seeding the whole zone with clover and embracing it's non-vegetable growing tendencies.

You'd think there'd be something in this mess we could eat.

The trouble is we want to grow veggies, but we have absolutely no spots on the property that are full sun. Well, almost no spots.

There is the “parking lot.”

The parking lot is what we call the zone at the very top of the yard just past the culvert. It's where you park when you come to visit, two tires on the grass two tires off. It's dry and strange and full of weeds. Oh, and I believe that it actually belongs to the county.

Why now? Why didn't we try this years ago when we were struggling with this sun problem and relocating beds all over the property? 'Cause I neurotically thought it would look bad. Does it look bad? No, but it doesn't look awesome.

However at this point I've ceased to care. I know, strangeness. But I worried that it looked like we were crazy people for wanting to grow tomatoes. There's a difference between growing things solely for food purposes and growing pretty things. We're already the family with the 4 year old who rides without training wheels, who's usually accompanied by the DUDE ON THE UNICYCLE, and the toddler who's trying to keep up on his strider. We're always outside pulling weeds and picking at the plants, but without the veggies it appears like it's a leisure activity. It's not actually work if you're not trying to grow food. Now, we're the nutters with the vegetable garden right by the road.