Well, last year became: spouse having surgery, me starting two jobs, rinse repeat.

We did the the raised beds installed along the garage, and we did grow radishes, cucumbers, herbs, and (a crap ton of) tomatoes. With the level of busy-ness, we didn't really stay on top of the garden, but we still had some good learnings. San Marzanos are great, but they Just Do Not Stop. Romas are good but not asgood, but have the benefit of Stopping. We also grew some heirloom paste tomatoes, but Spouse didn't care for the color, which is fair. Jury is still out on whether we'll do determinate or indeterminate (or both) this year.

Work is still busier than either of us would like, but we did get the intended seed-starting setup going and then got some snapdragons and strawflowers started. I also have a pot of salads that keeps on giving living behind the TV couch in the basement. It is awesome to have fresh greens.



As an interesting bonus: I accidentally saved radish seeds. We'd let the last succession of radishes go to seed last June; the intent originally was to eat the pods, but then life happened and they just... malingered there. We left them over winter, and a few days ago I went and snagged some of the dried pods. There were indeed radish seeds in there!



I planted some, and I now have a friendly radish sprout in my basement salad trough.

Happy Easter to all who celebrate!

Lent was Lent-y this year, and Holy Week was a walk to the cross via a surgery and just the usual ton of work that goes into making the Triduum (the Great Three Days of the Easter mysteries/liturgies) happen for our community.* Once again, we remembered together what it is be knit together in this particular kind of community, what it is to die, why that's important, and finally what it is to rise together to new life in and with Christ, through whom all things were made.

So here we are on the other side, a successful surgery also giving new life and the garden waking rapidly up after a much-needed Holy Week snowstorm. The coming liturgical season of Eastertide is all about the noticing and fostering of new life and figuring out how to live it, so it feels appropriate that my mind can finally return to the garden. The bulbs that T (my wife) planted two years ago are coming in, the rhubarb is poking up through the remaining snow, and it's time to bring some lilac branches in to get a foretaste of the world's greening up.

Since I have today off, I'm experimenting with bread baking (white sandwich bread) and laying out the future raised beds.

Here's the current situation and plan, along the south side of the garage:



The plan is to put in four new 2x5 beds in here, with two feet between the beds.

The blue scribbles on the right are where the blueberries will be going.  More on that when we get there!  They're still in the fridge for now, waiting.

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* I'm an Episcopal priest by vocation and trade

There are two blueberry plants in my fridge!  I've wanted to grow blueberries forever. We used to pick wild blueberries when camping or visiting my grandparents in Northern Minnesota, and they were so flavorful; store-bought berries are not the same creature.

We picked up one Northland blueberry bush and one Jersey blueberry bush, hardy to zones 3 and 4 respectively.  The Northland will be ready for harvest in late spring to early summer, which is wild to me, and the Jersey will produce around August.  

Our soil is not naturally acidic, so we bought some soil acidifier and need to pick up some HydraPeat.  I'm so impatient to get these in the ground, but the recommendation was to wait until our other woody shrubs start to leaf out (and also there's a big snow storm coming through in a few days, so).  They're going in a spot on the south side of the house that should provide plenty of space and sunlight, though I might need to remove an old raised garden bed.  If this goes well, there would be room for a third bush.  

These will be the first edible perennials in the yard!

Y'all, I loved LiveJournal. It has been nearly 20 years, and here we go again, starting a blog.

I'm not 100% certain how this will shape up. My current projects / things I'm thinking about are:

• What does self-sufficiency really look like in the United States in 2024, and why does that matter?
• How is self-sufficiency related to community resiliency?
• What are the things that connect us, as local and larger communities?  How can I support those things?
• Do we have shared stories, what are they, and what do they tell us about ourselves?
• Can I have chickens?

I don't know how blogs work anymore, since The Great Monetization changed things, but I expect this is going to be more old-school (?), thinking through things out loud -- rather than performing expertise, which I won't pretend to have -- and desiring feedback and conversation. 

A bunch of stuff will inform this.  I'm an Episcopal priest, I'm queer, I'm in my 40s, and I'm married.  I live in a city, and I do a lot of work in rural and small-town areas in the Upper Midwest.  I want to get real about growing food and exploring homesteading.  I'm terminally reflective by nature.

If you've found this and you're interested in this stuff, say hi!  I want to meet you!  And I don't really know yet how Dreamwidth works!