My garden started as a small 10X10 space on our hilltop. I dreamed of having a large garden and plenty of space for children to play, so 1.16 acres seemed huge in comparison to the duplex we were living in.

The property came with the most amazing tree which we call the "Magic tree". The garden sits just behind this tree where our children climb through her low branches and have a swing hanging from her graceful inviting arm. There is even a "hole" on one side where the children like to hide treasures and keepsakes. Truly, a magical tree for children.

As our family grew, so did the garden. It is now a big 50X40 plot separated in 4 quarters, housing a small 32 gallon pond in its center, to encourage the abundant wildlife needed for a natural garden environment. Most people go to a church on Sunday, we go to the garden. Where we grow only heirloom and open pollinated edible plants. We save the seed from each variety for the following spring starting and excess to trade or share with others. We will not use chemicals in the garden or on plants anywhere located on the property.

We raise various breeds of chickens for the variety in egg color and yard bug control. I really like the Delaware's friendly temperament, plus the idea I am helping to keep a breed going which is on the critical list for the livestock conservation society. Recently we acquired a group of Californian rabbits to raise for meat. Perfect for any urban farmers who would like to raise their own meat and have little space to work with. Plus the fertilizer can go right on the garden without a waiting period. Up until recently, we also raised goats.

USL: What has been the hardest thing you've faced in your efforts to live a more sustainable life?

Local support. It has been a bumpy 7 years since we bought our home and 6 years since we added the chickens. Not many neighbors were happy about it, but have come to accept their presence seeing they are not of a nuisance (and they lay eggs which are happily shared with the neighbors). It takes time for people to accept change and difference around them. A kind word and patience will prove to be the best action. Consideration for your lifestyle will only come if you show respect and consider theirs.

USL: Have you changed (emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually) since you began sharing your adventures in sustainable living in your blog site?

My whole life has changed for the better since starting a blog about our unusual life. It has come with its ups and downs but the positives far outweigh the negative. I have a new feeling of purpose in life. Having no one around me who enjoys urban farming in the beginning made me feel isolated. I began blogging just to have a place I could write about our adventures as though I were writing a friend far away. Telling them about our daily life and sharing advice on what I have encountered. It was my outlet of expression where I had no one around who was interested. I have found a connection to the earth that was always there for me but my eyes were not able to focus on what she was trying to tell me. By living this way of life and sharing it on a blog, I have found my spiritual connection to the earth has brought me understanding, a little more patience, and the enjoyment of simple things in life. I have never been happier then what I am now

USL: How would you describe your site to someone who has not visited it yet?

A place that you never know what I will be up to next. I love adventure and urban farming. I cover so many subjects that circle the urban farming lifestyle. From growing a garden of edibles, raising backyard flocks of chickens, meat rabbits and until recently dairy goats. I even dabble in home wine making plus herbal medicinal treatments, all the way to frugal ideas for my many crazy projects, which involve making things instead of buying them. You never know what unusual idea I will be into next.

USL: Anything else you'd like to share with our readers?

I so desired to find local people who were into the urban sustainable lifestyle, that I began a yahoo group "Akron Homesteaders". I went with the motto "If you build it, they will come". From which in just 1 year we have over 20 local active members and are still growing as word gets out. The group has brought such great friendships and community support. I would encourage anyone who may feel they are the only soul around them that is interested in the lifestyle, to start a group. If someone like me can start one, anyone can do it
Check out Tammie's adventuresome blog site at

http://unusuallyunusualfarmchick.blogspot.com/

Check it out, and be sure to rate, comment and favorite the videos. Win a FREE SUNSTICK by commenting and rating videos, check out the contest info below. And don't forget to Save Water, Time and the Planet with Dripworks irrigation products.

Enter to win a Sunstick Today a True Miracle Tool!

This months contest is for a super easy to use product (a miracle product for newbies) that can save you years worth of trial and error. It's called the sunstick, and it is super simple. You simply place it in the ground where you plan to have a garden and it will let you know the quantity and quality of the light in your garden.

I can't tell you how many plants I have killed by not planting the right types of plants in the right spot.

To enter this contest all you have to do is sign up for a Youtube account, and rate, comment and favorite one of the recently released videos above. If you already have an account no problem, simply rate, favorite and comment a video. Don't forget to send me an email that tells me which video you commented on!

We have FIVE of these which makes the odds of winning very good. You can increase your odds of winning by commenting on more videos, limit of five entries per person please. Thank you and Go Sunstick!

The song may go... April showers bring May flowers, but what do you do to water your garden come June when showers are sparse? Sure you can rely on your municipal water supply, but those of us that want to go green and conserve think self-sufficiency. Rain barrels are a great way to do just that. You can collect water and store it for when you need it, and it doesn't take much to replenish your supplies.

Unfortunately, if you are like me and my garden buddies, rain barrels are in the plans for our gardens, but way down the already crowded to-do list. I for one have already found the perfect place for four rain barrels in my yard. Three will be linked together in my garden and the fourth will be over by my blueberry bushes. I can easily handle the three in my garden because that one downspout collects water from approximately 700 SF of roof area. That and I have a storm drain located right there for the overflow, because 700 SF will fill 165 gallons in one good rain here in the Pacific Northwest. The other barrel will not only allow me to water my blueberries and potatoes, but it will protect my blueberries as well. Using a rain barrel there will redirect the downspout from dumping water onto my blueberry bushes, possibly watering them too much.

You see, rain barrels can provide much needed water where you need it, and even redirect water from where you don't. If you want to buy them, they can run between $50 and $150 per 55 gallon barrel. Of course there are sites out there showing you how to build them yourself, but if you do, make sure the barrel you use is food grade and thoroughly cleaned. Checking Craigslist and Freecycle in your area is a good start for used barrels, then check your local hardware store or big box for the plumbing materials.

Once you have it built or bought, install it on a stack of bricks high enough to get your watering pail under it. Remember that gravity is all the water pressure you have. Oh, and drip systems or soaker hoses don't work that well with rain barrels for that very reason.

One final note on collecting water from your roof. Do some research into the ingredients used in your roofing materials. Certain chemicals used in some shingles are not recommended for vegetable gardens. So while nature doesn't put chlorine in rain water, your roof can put asbestos, copper, zinc and petroleum products in your rain barrel. While there is no consensus on the issue, some sites recommend only using collected rain water on ornamentals. My opinion is home-grown vegetables with questionable rain water is better than GMO store-bought ones any day!

So, if you're like me and want to save some water this year, there's no better time like the present when nature will gladly fill several barrels for you. Get busy and get those barrels installed. They're a long-term investment in your sustainable garden!

Want to talk about the HR 875 Good, Bad or Ugly go to the Message board and leave a post!

Read the Bill Here

Victory gardens, freedom gardens, recession gardens, sustainable gardens, or kitchen gardens. A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. What you call it isn't as important as having one and growing home grown delights in it! That's what Roger Doiron, founder of Kitchen Gardeners International believes. Instead of recession gardeners growing food to take a bite out of their strapped budgets, Kitchen Gardeners are self-described "foodies" that grow their own food to insure the finest quality and freshness. In that way, people everywhere can relocalize their food supply. What a great way to think about what we all do!

I for one can relate well to Mr. Doiron's goals and methods. Even though I started my garden as a stress relieving hobby, I soon was thanking my good fortune in hindsight when I heard about tainted spinach and the like, resulting in proposed laws requiring produce be irradiated before it gets to market! My garden is less than 10 feet from my back door and during the harvesting seasons, dinner can be planned around what I bring in fresh from five minutes in my organic kitchen garden.

Another admirable goal of Kitchen Gardeners International is to unite people of common ideas for the betterment of the world. Personally, I have met dozens of like-minded garden buddies out there from all over the United States and the world. Sharing ideas, research, trials and successes, we have each grown as people and as gardeners.

It's staggering to think that through World War II, as much as 25% of the food production in the United States was home-based, falling to almost 0% today. One thing that kept the home food production so high in the early 1900s was the government's Victory Garden programs designed to make American families self-sufficient to allow for more food to be shipped to soldiers overseas. It is clear that we need something similar again to get back to some meaningful number, if not 25%.

Sure, there have been many grass roots groups working diligently to build support for growing even a portion of your family's food at home, getting government support and backing is crucial to the efforts. Roger Doiron and KGI have done more than most to work to get the Obamas to turn the South Lawn of the White House into an 1,100 SF kitchen garden to raise 55 organic vegetables for use by the First Family and even for state dinners! Maybe, just maybe, this will help give folks the motivation to turn a small southern facing section of their yard into their very own kitchen garden.

If you haven't checked out what Roger Doiron and his group of like-minded gardeners helping gardeners are doing, you really should. In fact, I plan on spending August 23rd this year, otherwise known as Kitchen Garden Day, enjoying gardens in my area and sharing what we grow.

Be sure to click on the links and thank Roger for all his hard work!

Many years ago, when I was a goody-two-shoes student sitting in the front row of my Master Gardening class, Annie Hayes, owner of Annie's Annuals Nursery, came to speak to us horticultural wannabe's. There she was, Missy Botanist, proudly standing in front of the classroom holding up her healthy, hearty plants and spewing off the Latin names, while most of us gardening eggheads could barely recall the common name. At the time, we both had just given birth to baby boys. While she appeared angelic, blissful, ecstatic, I looked like a sleep-deprived, tearful junkie desperately searching for an emergency escape hatch, a grand siesta or a hotel mini-bar. But I digress . .

Featured in Fine Gardening, House and Garden, Horticulture and Sunset magazines, nursery owner, Annie Hayes, like yours truly, is a flower fanatic or as her company t-shirt reads, a "Flower Floozie." She was passionate about a gardening hobby that now has become a 2 1/2 acre "growing" nursery in Richmond, California. The nursery has one of the largest selections of California and US native plants, annual wildflowers and cottage garden perennials anywhere. I highly recommend that native plants be a large part of your backyard landscape because many are drought tolerant, most need minimal maintenance and all of them are attractive to native birds, butterflies and beneficial insects. It's all good, Baby!

At the growing nursery, the team grows most of their plants from seed without a greenhouse. If you have ever grown plants from seed, you may have found out as I did: it isn't so simple. I believe some people have a knack for it and some don't. I don't. The growing conditions have to be just right and you can't forget about your vulnerable seedlings for a week just because you get a call to go on assignment with Martha Stewart filming Northern California nurseries, as I did. (I also stopped breast-feeding to go on the road with Martha. What kind of mother does that? . . )

These seedlings survive wind, rain, and sun so your plants are basically hardened off, healthy and strong when you purchase them. All of the plants are grown without the use of growth regulating hormones, which are commonly used on plants you buy from large-scale growers. The growth hormones slow done the growth and extend the shelf life at the store and can lead to substandard results later on. The philosophy at the nursery is organic gardening. " Good gardening is about good soil. Topdressing your soil with compost regularly is all you really have to do," says Annie Hayes. "Rich soil and proper watering makes plants grow so healthy, vigorous and pest free. Who needs chemical fertilizer?"

Many of us home gardeners share the same enthusiasm for the look of the dreamy cottage garden. When I moved into my house over ten years ago, I was determined to compete with the suburban lots of my neighbors who enjoy gnomes, trolls, pink pelicans and plastic reindeer on their lawns year round. Not that there's anything wrong with that . . . But I was looking for a more natural haven, less populated by man-made animals. At many California nurseries, I found the Annie's Annuals tags and found a great variety of annuals or perennials that share the natural grace and charm I was looking for. Above each plant species there's a color photograph of what your 4 inch plant will turn into come spring or summer. The plants look as Mother Nature intended them to be; tall, flowering, flowing in the breeze and looking happy! This is rarely found at the big chain store nurseries where plants look crowded, neglected and miserable. Sort of like NYC subway riders, chain-smoking, cursing, mumbling; waiting for the A train just a wee bit too long at the station. And unlike many modern hybrids, a majority of Annie's Annuals' old-fashioned annuals self-sow easily again and again, year after year.

The growing nursery in Richmond is open for shopping Thursdays through Sundays. Plant-a-holics living far away can order online from the website and from the beautiful color catalogue. You can sign up to be on the catalogue mailing list by going to www.AnniesAnnuals.com. Once there, you can also view the lovely plant slideshow but be forewarned. You'll want to buy everything, immediately.

By KitsapFG
www.modernvictorygarden.com
If you are interested in creating raised beds using your native soil then you may want to try double digging. Double-dug, raised beds are highly productive because the process loosens the soil up to a depth of 24 inches allowing roots to penetrate more deeply and creates a raised, very well amended bed. It is one of the secrets to a seriously productive garden. I will be straight up with you though - this is really hard work! The good news is - that if you double dig your bed and then avoid walking on the growing bed soil, amend with compost regularly, and occasionally use a U-Bar/Broadfork or garden spade to lift and aerate - then you should never have to double dig that bed again. If you are creating new beds or trying to rejuvenate a garden bed, I would encourage you to give double digging a try.

1) Start at one end of the area and dig a one-shovel-deep trench across the width of the plot. I use a garden spade to do my double digging. (This is an existing 8 foot by 4 foot long garden bed that is being extended with another 4 feet of bed area.)

2) Place the soil in a wheelbarrow as you dig the first trench and set it aside for now. You will need this soil during the last stage of the double dig process.

3) At the bottom of the trench, thoroughly loosen the soil with a garden fork or spade.

4) Add several inches of quality, finished compost to the bottom of the trench.

5) Sprinkle rock minerals into the bottom of the trench as needed and indicated for your soil. My soil tends to be acidic and generally requires phosphorous and to a lesser degree potassium. I use a handful each of dolomitic lime (adjusts ph and adds calcium), rock phosphate, and greensand to the bottom of the trench. Do not get carried away with amendments - a light dusting is more than sufficient and too much can cause imbalances that will give you grief later on.

6) Use your garden fork to mix the compost and rock minerals into the soil at the bottom of the trench. I use a lifting motion to ensure I am mixing and aerating the soil at the same time.

7) Next, dig another trench beside the first - placing the soil from the second trench into the first.

8) Loosen the soil in the bottom of the second trench and amend it in the same manner as done in the first. Continue this process until the entire garden area has been completed.

9) Fill the final trench with the soil from the first that you set aside in the wheelbarrow.

10) Rake the top of the bed to level the soil out and break up any clods. Add a layer of good finished compost to the top of the soil.

11) Sprinkle another light dusting of rock minerals on to the top layer of soil over the compost (same as used in the lower trench portions) and then use your garden fork to mix it into the top few inches of soil.

12) Do a final raking to smooth the bed and you are done!

This bed is now ready to be planted up. The soil is loose, full of organic matter, and well mineralized. Notice how much more volume the soil has from the original soil that was in the bed at the start? This aeration and amendment process dramatically improves the texture and quality of the growing bed.