Contents Introduction ............................................................... 1 PART I: Getting to Know the Micro-Farm ................ 5
PART 2: Becoming a Micro-Farmer ....................... 155
Chapter 1: Suburbia: Civilization’s Opportunity .. 7 The Suburban Problem ........................................... 11 Suburban Micro-Farming Myths ............................ 12 The Suburban Micro-Farm Solution ...................... 14
Chapter 7: Organizing Your Micro-Farm ........... 157 Make a Garden Sketch ..........................................160 Make Seed and Supply Purchases .......................161 Month-by-Month Micro-Farming .........................164 Checklists and Monthly Calendars .......................169
Chapter 2: Managing Expectations ...................... 17 Prevent Garden Overwhelm Syndrome ................ 18 Life Hacks for the Busy Micro-Farmer ................... 20 When It’s Not Enough .............................................. 23 Overcoming Brown Thumbs ................................... 26 Setting Up Your Neighborhood for Success ......... 28 Chapter 3: Developing Healthy Soil ..................... 39 Building Soil Health and Fertility ........................... 40 Guide to Organic Soil Amendments ...................... 43 No-Till Micro-Farming .............................................. 60 Constructing a Simple Compost System ............... 69 How to Compost ...................................................... 73 Cultivate Worm Castings with Vermicomposting ............................................ 75 Chapter 4: Vegetables On The Micro-Farm ......... 79 The Efficient Micro-Farm ......................................... 80 Guide to Planting and Growing Vegetables .......... 85 Choosing Crops to Meet Your Needs .................... 94 How to Place Vegetables .......................................102 Extending the Season with Cold Frames .............110 Chapter 5: Fruit on the Micro-Farm................... 119 Growing Fruit Trees ...............................................120 Growing Berries for Beginners .............................123 Choosing Fruit for Your Circumstances ..............134 Chapter 6: Herbs on the Micro-Farm ................. 139 Kitchen Garden Herbs ...........................................140 Growing a Medicine Garden .................................142 Herbs in a Pollinator Garden ................................146 Create an Herb Spiral ............................................150
Chapter 8: Seed Starting & Planting .................. 173 Starting Seeds Indoors: A Step-by-Step Guide ...174 How to Sow Seeds Directly Outdoors..................181 How to Transplant Seedlings Outdoors ..............183 Chapter 9: Maintaining the Garden & Harvesting the Produce .................................. 187 Daily Garden Visits .................................................188 Mulching in the Garden.........................................188 Watering ..................................................................195 Pest Management ..................................................197 Guide to Harvesting Vegetables ...........................205 Cleaning up the Garden for Fall ...........................212 Easy Seeds to Save .................................................216 Storing Seeds ..........................................................220
PART 3: Advanced Micro-Farming Techniques ... 225 Chapter 10: Edible Landscaping ......................... 227 Why Landscape with Edibles? ...............................228 Things to Consider before Breaking Ground......230 Landscape Design Principles for Visual Appeal..232 Planning Techniques for the Edible Landscape .232 Choosing What to Plant .........................................235 Utilizing the Parking Strip ......................................241 Chapter 11: Digging Deeper: Permaculture & Micro-Farming ......................... 245 Using Water Wisely ................................................246 Building Plant Guilds..............................................259 Farming the Contour .............................................266 Terracing with Check Logs ....................................270 Managing the Edges ..............................................274 Permaculture Plants ..............................................288 Chapter 12: Making Money on the Suburban Micro-Farm .................................. 297 Perennial Crops ......................................................298 Annual Crops with a Long Season .......................301 Shade Crops............................................................302 The Edible Plant Nursery.......................................305 Cut Flowers .............................................................307 Maple Syrup ...........................................................309 Cottage Food Products ..........................................310 Homemade Soap ...................................................312 Teaching and Writing .............................................313 Tips for Success ......................................................315
Conclusion .............................................................. 319 Acknowledgements ............................................... 321 Bibliography ........................................................... 323 Additional Resources ............................................ 328 Books..................................................................... 329 Online Resources ................................................. 330 Index ........................................................................ 331 About the Author ................................................... 345
Bonus Materials: TenthAcreFarm.com/tsmf-companion
Suburban Micro-Farming Myths MYTH 1: You need a lot of space to have a productive homestead. In actuality, it doesn’t take much space to grow a lot of food–only creativity. In the next section, you’ll see the results of a study that demonstrate how one acre of suburban garden can be three times more productive than one acre of farmland. My 0.10-acre micro-farm, for example, produces enough homegrown food to incorporate into 50% of our meals. Tip: Plant the parking strip. We planted three dwarf cherry trees in our parking strip (between the sidewalk and the street), which produced 27 pounds of cherries in one year. See chapter 10 for more details about planting the parking strip.
The more limitation and restrictions you put on a design, the more creative you become.
Geoff Lawton
MYTH 2: Farming is ugly and should be confined to the backyard. Growing food can be more imaginative than simply planting a rectangular garden plot in rows. Since our backyard is shady, we grow most of our fruit in the edible front yard. With beautiful leaves and fruit, the strawberries, currants, black raspberries, and cherry trees compete with ornamental landscaping for beauty. In fact, the berry hedge lining our front porch produced 13 pounds of berries in one year and attracts hummingbirds when flowering. We discovered that edible landscaping can be done the wrong way, and we made plenty of mistakes. See chapter 10 for more edible landscaping ideas and to learn from our mistakes!
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Chapter 1: Suburbia: Civilization’s Opportunity
MYTH 3: You need flat, sunny land to grow food. Because most suburbanites didn’t choose their property for its farming merits, it is likely that your property has some challenges such as sloping land or shady areas. Have no fear! Land with contours can actually be beneficial for growing food by creating microclimates of hot/dry and cool/moist conditions, allowing you to grow a diversity of crops. See chapter 11 for more ideas on how to take advantage of sloping land. A partially shady yard can still produce an abundance of food using cool-season vegetables such as leafy greens and root vegetables. In one year, we produced 80 pounds of cool-season vegetables in just two 4x8’ raised beds in our shady backyard. See chapters 4 and 5 for more ideas on working with shade.
Red currants grow in the shady edible landscape.
MYTH 4: Only full-time micro-farmers can yield a lot of produce. It’s true that the more time you spend doing something, the more you get out of it. But that doesn’t mean part-time micro-farmers and weekend warriors can’t pull off a successful garden. We’re all busy, which is why I suggest spending 15 minutes a day in the garden. Committing to gardening for 15 minutes a day does a lot of things: It keeps gardening as part of the daily routine even when you’re busy and inclined to put it off until you have a big block of time (which rarely comes). The practice eases anxiety about what “should” be happening in the garden and connects you to the joy of the growing process. To read more about the 15-minutesa-day strategy, see chapter 2.
MYTH 5: A farm must have farm animals. The vision of a traditional farm—with grazing livestock and rows of crops—is a beautiful one, and quite alluring to many micro-farmers who figure out how to raise animals thoughtfully and conscientiously in smaller spaces. However, just as there are traditional farmers who special-
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Choosing Fruit for Your Circumstances We all wish that we had the perfect, full-sun garden with amazingly fluffy, rich, well-draining soil. Alas, because nature if perfectly imperfect, so are our growing spaces. I think the universe simply wants to spark our creativity with garden design challenges.
Fruit for Wet and Erosion-Prone Areas Since humans don’t typically enjoy wet feet, we have adapted to cultivating and eating fruit that naturally grows in well-drained areas. But don’t let that fool you. A decent number of edible berries can be found in soggy areas. For example, elderberry, gooseberry, and highbush cranberry are fruit-producing shrubs that don’t mind temporary wet feet. They could even be planted in a rain garden that drains within 24 hours. For more wet-area crop ideas, see chapter 11 for “Edible Crops in Rain Barrels”.
Fruit for Shady Areas Shade can disappoint even the most enthusiastic gardener, but it doesn’t have to mean growing fruit is a no-go. In fact, most fruit-producing species evolved in part-shade environments. In addition to currants and black raspberries, other fruits that will grow exceptionally well in partial or dappled shade are elderberry, gooseberry, serviceberry, and pawpaw.
Grow a Jelly Garden Many of us purchase properties that include at least one tree or shrub that produces seemingly pointless fruit: a crabapple or Bradford pear tree, for example. Privacy hedges often include many shrub species that produce an edible—but rather unappealing—berry. If you have a hankering for a productive landscape, you might wish to tear out that ornamental crabapple and replace it with a real apple tree, or replace the hedge with a tastier edible species. This sentiment is understandable, and in small yards where the one tree or hedge is the only opportunity to grow edible fruit, I might do just that. However, you might be surprised to know that crabapples, Bradford pears, and many shrub-produced berries are actually edible. With some creativity, you can learn to appreciate the abundance of fruits that produce without any help on your part. Caution: If you decide to harvest from existing plants, be sure you have accurately identified the plant to avoid poisonous berries. 134
Chapter 5: Fruit on the Micro-Farm
Pollinators love crabapple blooms when they wake from winter slumber.
Red currant harvest
Tart-sour cherry harvest
A black currant harvest 135