Three motivations that drive me as a "farmer"

These are not all the motivations, but they are contradicting ones that battle for primacy in the hierarchy of vegetable garden planning. I stumbled over three articles in the same online publication and thought it odd that the ideas compete with each other to some degree.

Volume of Calories Grown
Beyond Salads: Planting a Garden to Feed a Family

vs

Most Nutritious Options
Top Ten Most Nutritious Vegetables and How to Grow Them in Your Garden

vs

Quick Growing and Producing
Quick Growing Vegetables for the Impatient Gardner

The first person to say "You don't have to sacrifice those things" will get a boot to the head. If I had one square foot to plant in, I would have to make a decision. One corn plant...one sweet potato slip...two crops of spinach....or early radish and late beets. There are always decisions and they do weigh on people, especially beginning growers.

Identifying your own personal goals is probably more fulfilling than ignoring them. My roommate likes variety. I tend more towards the quick producing and volume. I am far more interested in doing back to back crops of early and late vegetables than growing Mint or Basil.

My green beans are quick, prolific, and voluminous (in fiber, but not calories really). Probably why I like them.

2010 in reading

To recap my reading in 2010, in a word: lackluster. I only read 18 books, which is probably my lowest total since sometime in high school. In this number I did not include several books for the heaviest of my grad classes that required several separate books as text. 10 fiction, 7 non-fiction, and one autobiography (of sorts). Additionally I re-read the 7th Harry Potter book in English and Spanish to prepare for the final editions of the film series.

The biggest new trend was that I attempted to get a basic primer in classic 20th century science fiction. Some of the modern science fiction movies are based novels that are quite good and I took a stab at a few of them. I enjoyed them and plan to read more of the seminal works in science fiction.

Everyone should read: Red Families V. Blue Families, Naomi Cahn and June Carbone

Everyone should read this...red...blue...those well-educated...those less-educated. I warn that those less-educated my be offended by some of the premises of the the "red" family model. Hell, everyone will probably point out that they don't fit the models laid out, but I figure that well-educated folks will understand how statistically you can differ from a model, but the model is still sound and you fit into it somewhere. This book has good research then a decent dose of throwing ideas out there that the research does tend to support.

The authors propose that much of American political "tension" and much of opposing American cultures are shaped by two family cultures. "Red" families marry early and often, have children early and often, and have lower levels of education (especially investment in education of 'girls'). "Blue" families postpone marriage and childbirth, but are more educated when they do marry and start families. The book digs into the kind of values each culture has that is related to the kind of families they tend to have. If sex MUST be in a marriage and marriage is for procreation, then it makes sense that "red" families don't really see the needed for marriage equality. "Blue" families may not understand why abstinence education is important to the culture of "red" families because "blue" families view avoiding unplanned pregnancy as a far more important goal than preventing unwed sex. This book does a good job of covering MANY reasons why these cultures differentiate and addresses how assumptions of these groups are sometimes wrong. African American families may vote blue in this case, but much of their family culture is "red" for instance. Good book. Every person should read.

Biggest Disappointment: Green Metropolis, David Owen
Though the main thesis is pretty sound, it is presented with a sense of moral superiority. Living in dense, efficient cities is "greener" than living in the suburban or exurban greenscapes, but someone from a big city telling those of us with few other choices that we must change is just annoying. Good theory, weak on strategies for transitioning and implementing policies to encourage efficient city living en masse.

Best Read, Fiction: Have Spacesuit - Will Travel, Robert Heinlein
This is a shorter novel by one of the seminal sci-fi authors. It's simple, straight forward and amazingly enjoyable. Readers who have seen the film of Starship Troopers will enjoy Heinlein's book by the same title, but this novel tells a simpler story and one likely to interest young readers.

Best Read, Non-fiction: 538 Ways to Live Work and Play like a Liberal, Justin Krebs
How is this one "best read" not in my highly recommended? Because not everyone wants to be or support liberal causes, though I imagine they would still like half of the daily activities in this book. This is the kind of book you have in the bathroom or kitchen or on your night stand or in your purse for times when you have 5 minutes to read. A little bit at a time, you read about things that philosophically or practically line up with what modern American liberalism (progressivism) espouses. I made a mental list of habits I ought to adopt because they build the kind of community that supports good policy. It may be as simple as planning shared rides or inviting neighbors over for a BBQ, but these things are what makes us build links with the world instead of walling ourselves away. (I also like it because I met the guy who wrote it and got to talk to him!)

The reading list. Those bolded I highly recommend

The Map That Changed the World Simon Winchester

Skeleton Coast Clive Cussler

Primary Colors Anonymous

Starship Troopers Robert Heinlein

Plague Ship Cliver Cussler

I, Robot Isaac Asimov

Contact Carl Sagan

The Chase Clive Cussler

Green Metropolis David Owen

The Color Purple Alice Walker

The Case Against Hillary Clinton Peggy Noonan

The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado Adam Schrager, Rob Witmer

Girl, Interrupted Susanna Kaysen

Red Families V. Blue Families Naomi Cahn and June Carbone

The Squandering of America Robert Kuttner

Have Space Suit - Will Travel Robert Heinlein

Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez

538 Ways to Live Work and Play like a Liberal Justin Krebs

An ambitious expansion

Okay so this year's garden grew from 4 to 6 to 10 of those 4x4 boxes as the spring planting inspired us. This is on top of a 2 wide foot wrap around the deck that is to the right of this picture. In addition we had two long bean rows out to the left of the square boxes just in the ground. As you see there are now three long boxes....4x12 basically. And you may not see them in the right background, but there are two more 4x4's. That brings us to 12 of the squares. With the wrap around bed it all comes to about 396 square feet. That is really only 20 x 20, but remember we are not doing traditional row gardening with huge walkways between rows of vegetables. To put that in perspective if I planted it all in green beans I would harvest 222lbs (using last year's results). At upwards of 4 dollars a pound at the farmers' market, that would be $888 in produce.

Part of this expansion is because I went bought that extra scoop of compost. With that much, we don't even have to worry about mixing the horrible clay crap in with the good stuff, but we did a bit anyways. Actually the long box to the left there we just put the compost straight on top of the grass. All the boxes are set 2-3 inches into the ground, but with no weed barrier. The other 4 new boxes received the tender loving care of me hacking out clumps of sod, shaking, and removing as much roots and rocks as I could. I guess this will be a bit of an experiment to see how many more dandelions come up through the first long bed.

I should have taken pictures of the dandelions I pulled. The tops were small and puny, but they had roots up to 9 or 10 inches long and some of them I wasn't even getting the whole thing. I always knew dandelions were survivors, but I assume they really dig deep to get through the cherty clay that was used to level the lot 25 years ago.

I don't know how Kyle is going to manage to garden that much garden. He likes the idea of doing a little bit of everything in the garden. That makes for a lot of work with things needing started at different times, different sun and water requirements, confusing crop rotations, and different harvests. I prefer to do fewer items that I like to eat more of or that I had a good harvest of last year. I would love to have extra to give to friends and family.

We have basically done square foot method or variations of it. Kyle suggests he will run long rows in those long boxes, but not give them space between. I am not sure what I think of that. I say if you have a large group you want to plant, do it in a 4x4 block.