I’ve said it before: we live our lives around here much like our grandparents lived. Our activities and focus are largely dictated by the seasons. In summer, there’s a focus on the gardens and weeding and watering. In fall, it’s about the harvest which can be incredibly fast and furious. Along with firewood and winterizing the house, fall can get nuts. In late fall and early winter, as the garden goes fallow, there is a sense of rest. As hard as we had to push to get through fall, the initial beckoning of winter is very welcome. It’s time to move indoors, slow down and enjoy a little bit of the spoils of the harvest and the holidays. Soon enough, however, snow management kicks in and very quickly after, any charm that the “rest” of winter has brought wears off. It’s cold, dark and we’re trapped inside for the most part. That’s why I escape to Florida every year I can. But now, it’s spring. And spring is an especially good time to be homesteaders.
Right now, we are at the very beginning of our seed starting operation. Currently, there are just two flats of plants sitting under the grow light in our living room. One is a flat of about 400 onions which are just about due for their first “haircut,” when we trim the tops to help the stalks get a little stronger. The other is a mixed flat of basil and celery. Each are just starting to peek up through the soil with their very first leaves.
Soon, the small grow light and mat will be replaced by the bigger operation. The wire shelving with four available shelves for heat mats and grow lights will take up residence where the current small operation is. Then, there will be room for about 400 additional plants, which will make up the bulk of our garden. Tomatoes, sweet potatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers and other herbs such as sage, cilantro and thyme will be growing steadily under the careful management of my husband. Outside, carrots, peas and beets will join garlic in braving the cooler soil to get their start in the world. In a matter of about eight weeks, the gardens will come fully to life when potatoes, usually the last vegetable planted, finally get carefully laid into their troughs and covered with mounded soil.
There is a simple kind of rhythm to a life lived by a calendar. It’s comforting to know what happens next and in allowing Mother Nature to take the wheel. While it gets busy, there is also a genuine sense of accomplishment in each of the four seasons. In spring, while there are not yet rewards, there is a sense of completion of tasks that will prepare our little family for great rewards. In summer, simply watching the plants grow begins the payoff from spring’s activities. Those two-foot tomato plants? They were once tiny seeds. The bean stalks, potato plants and onions? Also from seeds. All that work tilling and working the soil? Well, the plants seem to have appreciated it.
As fall rolls in, the rewards become more obvious. Last year, I was harvesting about 10 pounds of tomatoes every few days. Need an onion for a meal you’re preparing? It’s pretty easy to walk out in the garden and grab one. Same with fresh herbs or green peppers. Mother Nature’s smorgasbord is right there for you to take advantage of.
Finally, as winter sets in, it’s pretty spectacular to walk down into the basement and see the two full freezers and shelving unit worth of stored food. In fact, there is nothing better. My husband doesn’t know it, but I often wander downstairs just to check out our stores. Potatoes, onions and garlic in dry storage. Beets, spaghetti sauce, ketchup, salsa, pickles, peach preserves and pepper jelly highlight the canned food. And the freezers? Yep! The piece de resistance! They are usually stock full of garden produce just waiting to be called up for action.
This year, I am motivated to “up” my game. Going half-time in May means I’ll be perfectly queued up to take more advantage of fruit season as well. Strawberries in June will mean homemade jam made with my niece; cherries in July means a future of homemade cherry pies; and more peaches in fall means more bourbon-soaked peaches served over a baked brie during the holidays.
For all that growing one’s food is infinitely more work than going to the grocery store, I wouldn’t change what we do or how we do it. I like living my life by the calendar and making the most of the miracle of sun and rain. I get no greater satisfaction then when I see a seed sprout or glance over at a growing garden on a lazy summer day. The sound of a canning jar “popping” brings absolute joy and a sense of accomplishment so deep that it affirms my real purpose in life: to provide for those I love.
And candidly, I love the simplicity. For all that we live in a disposable and fast-paced world, being yuppie homesteaders forcefully changes your pace. Plants will only grow so fast and it is a cadence of thoughtful preparation that brings those seeds to bear fruit. In the same way, the other elements of homesteading have a similar capability of slowing one down. Hanging clothes means that the sun and breeze will dry them – in their own time. So relax. The dryer isn’t going to buzz anytime soon. Gathering firewood usually means you won’t be using it during the height of summer, when harvesting starts. Instead, the wood needs to be carefully split and stacked, allowing it to dry out – or “season” – so that you get the maximum heat out of the wood. The same goes with compost. Those vegetable peelings? Give them a year and then they will be compost.
There are a lot of things that make my lifestyle so different from my past life. I’m no longer a CEO working more than full-time and in six short weeks, I’ll actually be working half-time. I’ve also relocated from my “walkable” location in town to out here in the country where it’s 15 minutes to the nearest grocery store. The only traffic on our road is from the occupants of the seven houses and a few others who know that the road is a conduit between two other more major routes. All of these things forced me to slow down and live just a little bit differently. But the garden? That’s on a whole new scale. I can’t make the celery grow faster, the tomatoes ripen more quickly or the potatoes grow larger. I can tend the garden but I need to let time, sunshine and rain do the rest. And just writing this sentence has the power to lower my pulse and deepen my breathing.
I was never much of a gardener before I met my husband and last year I resented the garden because its yield was so prolific during such a busy time at work. But this year and in my pending new life? Well, I am genuinely looking forward to the garden setting the cadence and falling into step behind it. Yes, each season will have its busy elements but the true impact? Well, just like love, you can’t hurry the garden.
The Yuppie Homesteader 