Early one summer morning I was sipping coffee, looking out over the quiet garden. There, on top of the shed, was a Cooper's Hawk — a beautiful, long-tailed, orange-legged bird, not particularly common in the city, even nature-filled Seattle, where I live. I ran to get my binoculars, wishing my husband and daughter were awake to have a look. But then I stopped in my tracks. Cooper's Hawks are bird eaters, and that hawk was perched right above my innocent, six-week-old chickens! In a flash I morphed from “Urban Birder” to “Protector of the Flock.” I ran outside like Ma Ingalls, waving my arms, pink flannel pajamas dragging around my feet, and yelling "Bad hawk! Go away!" The bird threw me a cool glance before leaping into flight, and I scampered barefoot around the muddy coop yard, scooping up the girls to bring them into the kitchen for the day.

I have always been critical of farmers that bait “vermin” such as hawks, coyotes and cougars because of their perceived threat to livestock, and I still am. But since the Cooper’s Hawk incident my thinking has become more nuanced. What if I really was Ma Ingalls? What if I was raising chickens not just because I love to do it, but because I had to do it, because there was no other source of sustenance for my family? What if all this was true and I kept a shotgun over the door?
One of the motivations for modern homesteaders — urban or rural — is the deepening of our "connection to nature." The notion conjures a poetic warmth — we sow, we reap, we nurture our gardens with compost, we stand in rain, in sun, beneath clouds and moon. The seasons are made beautifully manifest from peas to pumpkin. But just as often, the brush with nature is of a much different sort.

This year, crows watched me plant my peas, then nimbly plucked the seeds up with their bills as soon as I left (evidently they could identify the exact place of each seed by the dark patch of freshly-turned earth above it).

Raccoons clawed several of the apples from my new little columnar trees. A mole lifted my young broccoli plants right out of the ground. Most horribly, one night several years ago I was feeling complacent and didn’t shut the chickens in the coop; a raccoon climbed the fence and left poor Beatrix, Iris and Opal nearly dead.
In his indispensable book, Living With Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest (which offers a great deal of insight no matter what your geographic region), Russell Link writes, "We love wild animals, or we hate them, depending on what they're doing." Our hearts lift at the robin's spring song, then in the summer they eat our strawberries.

Our modern homesteading efforts underscore the fact that our dwellings are, in large part, semi-permeable. In our everyday living, we cross into wild nature, and it crosses — distressingly sometimes — back. I truly believe that it is both a privilege and a joy to live alongside wild creatures in our urban homes. But to dwell thoughtfully alongside wildlife, we will have to tolerate some inconvenience, give up some control, allow some slight discomfort. We’ll have to call upon our own wild creativity. We’ll have to remember that when a raccoon gets a chicken, it’s our own dumb fault.

And so we put nets over the strawberries, shoo the crows, and lock the girls into their own little Chicken Guantanamo every night. We take our place in a richly more-than-human world with as much grace as we can muster, with occasional difficulty, and with an ever-deepening delight.

Pictured above: Crow-bill sized hole in the pea patch.  At least I knew right where to re-plant! Photo by Lyanda Haupt.

Lyanda Haupt is a Seattle-based author, naturalist, and backyard  homesteader/chicken keeper.  Her latest book is Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness and she blogs at The Tangled Nest.

My backyard is looking a bit barren since I cleaned out the four raised beds and covered the bare soil with mown grass clippings and leaves. I did leave the nasturtiums that were still blooming. Their vibrant yellow and orange flowers, and large light-green leaves really stand out now that they are not overwhelmed by tall zinnias and pepper plants. In another bed, the lacy, yellow-green fronds of asparagus are still waving. The asparagus did well for the first year, putting up many stalks throughout the summer. It will be hard next year not to cut the spring spears and just let them go to seed — again! In order to develop hardy, productive asparagus crowns, it is recommended that the spears not be harvested for the first two years.

In preparation for next year’s crops, I planted some garlic cloves a few weeks ago. In September, I attended the Maine Organic Farmer’s and Gardener’s Association (MOFGA) Common Ground Fair in Unity, Maine. What a fabulous three-day event that is, with about 60,000 visitors and hundreds of vendors. I visited with a couple who raise a couple dozen kinds of garlic. They recommended I try three kinds —  all hardneck varieties — Romanian Red, Georgian Crystal and Phillips. I’m anticipating the moment next summer when I can gently dig the heads and sample the different flavors of the garlics.

My last gardening chore is to find a way to protect the lavender I planted on the south side of the house next to the foundation. It's a great location for heat loving herbs, and they have done well. But I want them to survive the winter. I’m considering cutting the lavender and other herbs back and covering them with upturned flower pots stuffed with leaves for insulation. I’ll let you know how that works.

In the meantime, it soon will be time to peruse the garden catalogs and make lists for next year’s garden. Wishing you a bountiful Thanksgiving!

Photo from Fotolia

There has been much press regarding the bee colony collapse disorder and its effects on agriculture. As a gardener, I also have been concerned about whether the loss of honeybees would have a direct effect on my garden production. A recent article, Successful Beekeeping with Your Own Honeybees, suggests that backyard gardeners might consider keeping a hive of bees to improve the pollination rates in their own yard and in neighboring gardens.

So, I was pleasantly surprised last week to discover a couple dozen bees noisily collecting on the flowering wild arugula that I let go to seed. I actually went to the garden to cut some zinnias for a new kitchen bouquet and had to lean over the arugula flowers to get to the zinnias. I was suddenly aware that my middle was hovering quite close to the buzzers, who seemed not at all concerned by my proximity.

As I stepped back to better view the whole scene, I discovered there were many honeybees and bumblebees on the zinnias as well as the arugula, plus a number of different kinds of butterflies. How exciting! The existence of these pollinators must be partially responsible for the abundance of cucumbers, tomatoes and green beans in my new garden this summer. I plan to start a flower garden in the backyard next spring and that surely will attract more bees, butterflies and other pollinators. 

Have you had an abundance or a dearth of pollinators in your gardens this season? You can share your experiences in the comments section below.

*It has been suggested the phrase, “it’s the bees’ knees,” popular in the 1920s, referred to the pollen collected on the midsection of bees legs, and pollen is a good thing for bees to collect.

Photo by Heidi Hunt

Homesteading in its broadest interpretation can entail being almost completely self-sufficient: growing, raising and crafting most of the daily necessities of life. A return, as it were, to the days of our pioneering ancestors who did it themselves or did without.

By contrast, an urban homesteader, which I consider myself to be these days, gleefully takes advantage of local foods, not feeling the necessity of growing or raising all their own veggies and fruit, or even eggs. In Topeka, during the months of July and August, fresh peaches can be found at most of the major produce stands at the Saturday local farmer’ market.

I hold up the line as I pick up and smell the fresh peaches in the little green cardboard boxes. If a warm, sweet, peachy aroma doesn’t reach my olfactory senses, I move on. I want the essence of a fresh peach to practically knock me to the ground. The fuzzy packages of flavorful goodness do not come to us cheaply — $4 for a box of five peaches. And it is imperative that you look at the one on the bottom of the carton as it may be an older, slightly bruised specimen, snuck into the deal. The peaches come from orchards in Missouri and Georgia. Missouri is just a stone’s throw from Topeka, so it seems reasonable to still call the Missouri peaches local. Kansas has not had the best weather recently for a predictable peach crop

I settle on the right box of perfectly ripe, fresh peaches, gently placing the treasure into my shopping bag and quickly head for home. I want to place each peach on the counter, not touching the others, to cut down as much as possible on the possibility of a tiny bruise exploding into a nasty blemish. The fun of making this summer dessert begins as I carefully peal the soft skin from the juicy flesh, the aroma tempting me to just pop half the peach into my mouth and be done with the agony of waiting for the perfect flavors to come. I slice the peach into a custard cup, one at a time, add a teaspoon of sugar, stir and wait about 15 minutes for the juices to develop. Then, just before eating, I drizzle a tablespoon of cream into the cup and stir gently.

Ahhh, peaches and cream. For me the most perfect of fruit flavors — cool, sweet, creamy and aromatic. By Sunday evening they are gone, and I must wait another week and hope they’re still available at the Saturday farmers market. Tomorrow is one of those Saturdays. I can almost taste the fresh peaches and cream right now.

Isn’t it just amazing how garden plants can grow in just one month? In June, I reported that my urban backyard garden had shoulder-height tomato plants – now they're eight feet tall and threatening to cascade down the side of their five-foot wire cages. Never have I had tomato plants this tall in July. I’m finally beginning to believe the topsoil I thought was just nasty clay is actually a super-soil! I did add some homemade fertilizer to the soil when I planted and a month later doused each plant with a fish-fertilizer mixture. Twice I added a thin layer of fresh grass clippings. So, I really don’t know which was most effective! But the bottom line is the garden is growing well and the veggies are rolling into the kitchen.

That over-sized red roasting pepper I told about in How Does the Garden Grow finally stopped growing at 10 inches and turned a lovely shade of red. Last weekend, I cut it into four long slices and roasted them over the grill. I was quite pleased with the results - a bit charred for that great roasted flavor but not over done. I shared a slice with my pepper-loving neighbor – he wants to grow them in his garden next year.

We experienced some 100 degree Fahrenheit weather in June that kept the tomatoes from setting fruit. So there is a space of about two feet on each plant where there are no tomatoes. But the early set fruit is ripening and we have enjoyed a lovely Cherokee purple tomato, my very favorite, sweet-not-acidic heirloom tomato. Now, the top of the tall hybrid tomato plants and the shorter heirloom ones are filling out nicely with fruit that should be ripe in a few weeks. It's so hard to wait to eat warm tomatoes, straight from the patch.

Our local farmers’ market has had some wonderful new potatoes. Oh – their taste can’t be compared to grocery store russets. My potato plants have grown well, but I don’t know yet what's hiding under the straw mulch. Usually I dig into the soil to clip off a few new potatoes that are close to the surface. But I’ve decided to wait to dig this year until the plants die down, allowing the potatoes to grow as big as they can. The new house has a basement and I’m hoping the spuds will keep well down there.

On the south side of the house, next to the driveway, I planted lavender, thyme, sage, tarragon and oregano. The oregano gave up the ghost in just a few weeks, but the rest of the herbs have done exceptionally well. I planted three varieties of lavender and the Goodwin Creek variety (Lavendula heterophylla) is just gorgeous! It has deep cut, silvery leaves. I plan to buy more, if this plant makes it through the winter and comes out OK next spring.

There are just so many veggies, fruits, herbs and flowers to tempt a gardener. It's hard to know when to stop planting and just enjoy the spectacle.

Photo by Heidi Hunt

Just one month ago, in Settling In, I wrote about the pathetically poor dirt masquerading as soil in my new raised garden beds. In fact, I said at the end of that blog post, “Hopefully, the next photo of the garden will include lush veggie foliage — we’ll see!!”

Well, just look at the garden now! I am pleasantly surprised by how everything has flourished. The spinach, lettuce and arugula are not as robust as they could be, but we have eaten a number of fine, tender salads. As of yesterday’s 90-degree-Fahrenheit-plus temperature, the spinach has bolted, but I think I’ll still be able to harvest some lettuce for this evening’s supper.

The tomato plants are shoulder height and there are about five bitty green tomatoes on the six plants. The pepper plants, though not very tall, have already produced an eight-inch roasting pepper. It is so hard to wait for it to turn red and sweet. The pole green beans have shot up over the top of the chicken-wire trellis and attached themselves to the neighboring chain link fence. Isn’t it amazing how vining plants seem to “see” the nearest structure to climb? I can’t wait to see what’s under the clay and straw covering the potatoes. The plants, in their one-foot-high beds are up to my thigh in height and already are blooming. So far, the only failure is the leeks. I think a couple of seeds sprouted, but they are now hiding in the wheat that is covering all of the beds.

Wheat!? Am I growing wheat in my backyard raised beds? Well, no — at least not on purpose. For 20 years, I’ve used straw as mulch in each spring’s garden — holding in the moisture and helping the soil to stay soft. But this year’s bale of wheat straw contained a whole lot of wheat kernels still in the straw. I didn’t realize this until one morning after a couple of days of rain: There was a fine fuzz of green everywhere, in all four beds. When I tried to pull the little grasses, the top came loose from the base, leaving the root structure intact. Shucks! So, now that the wheat is taller and tougher, I just grab a handful of wheat and straw and yank it out of the soil, leaving the uprooted plants right where they are to act as additional mulch.

This has been such a satisfying gardening month. In July, I hope to have an even more exciting growing and harvesting report.

Photos by Heidi Hunt

PHOTO BY HEIDI HUNT

It’s almost the end of May, and we’ve been in the new house for six and a half weeks. We’ve accomplished so much and really are feeling at home in our historic bungalow. The flowers in the front bed are beginning to bloom, and the roses and peonies have bountiful blossoms. In fact, the peonies are so large and filled with flowers that I was able to cut a large bouquet for the house. You know you are home when you can cut bouquets from your own flower beds!

I do think that growing vegetables will be a challenge. The terrible clay-like “top soil” that was delivered for our garden beds is truly cloddy material. There is no way to gently crumble the dirt around delicate new seedling roots. So, because I have no established compost material, I had to resort to commercial potting soil to cover the roots. When planting and seeding, I added a generous portion of homemade organic fertilizer to the soil. This fertilizer recipe contains all of the nutrients your veggies need to grow into healthy productive members of your garden community — seed meal, agricultural lime, gypsum, dolomitic lime, bone meal and kelp meal. I’ve also spread thin layers of grass clippings each time I mow. The yard is small, so I don’t collect massive amounts of clippings each mowing. But there’s enough to spread on all of the soil, decreasing the likelihood of the clay developing a rock-hard surface no seed can push through. Grass clippings also release nitrogen into the soil, which is good for the new plants.

The only unique garden technique I’ve used in the new beds has been to spread pine branch clippings around the raspberry and strawberry plants. Eventually, the needles will dry and fall off the branches. I am hoping their sharp points will be a deterrent to bunnies and squirrels who love to nibble on ripe, red fruit. Cheryl Long, Mother Earth News editor-in-chief, has suggested using red marbles or red-painted rocks to trick the nibblers. The theory is after encountering the hard, inedible goodies the critters will move on to a new yard to look for a snack. I’ll give that a try as soon as there is some red fruit to tempt them.

Hopefully, the next photo of the garden will include lush veggie foliage — we’ll see!!

The downtown historical neighborhood I moved into a month ago is beginning to feel like home. Last weekend the neighborhood association held their annual breakfast and plant sale at the Presbyterian church, located smack dab in the middle of the neighborhood. We wandered the half block to the sale and bought a few annuals for our small front-yard garden bed. Right now, there’s not much room for flowers, but I’m sure over the next few years the lawn area will decrease while the gardens expand.

Saturday was a beautiful day and folks were out planting, mowing and walking their dogs. We met half a dozen neighbors and discovered we already knew some of them. Serendipity!! While planting strawberries, raspberries and vegetable seeds, we were offered some thornless blackberry plants from our across-the-alley neighbor. She also has a large patch of iris and I’m hoping in the fall she might be willing to divide a couple of unusual ones for us.

At the end of the day we were sitting on the porch, just relishing the quiet ambience of the neighborhood, when we were invited to join a group of neighbors for an end of the day libation. Wow! We’ve only been in the house for a month and already a party invitation.

Everyone we’ve met expounds on the feeling of community and small-town living this particular neighborhood has developed. This historical area encompasses some lovely restored Victorian houses and some no-so-lovely rental units in need of TLC. I was encouraged to learn that many of the elderly residents are watched over by a group from the homeowners association. If the mail isn’t collected or the newspapers pile up in the driveway, someone stops in to see if all is well.

Despite the fact that my house and yard are much smaller than in the previous location, I have a sense of living in a much bigger space because the neighborhood is so inviting. I grew up in a small town and am thrilled to have “returned,” 40 years later, to a place where I am welcomed and feel a measure of belonging.

Does your neighborhood invite you in or do you feel a sense of isolation? Share your experiences in the comments section below.

PHOTO BY HEIDI HUNT

Starting garden beds from scratch, as I am doing at my new digs, can be challenging – grass roots, clay soil and deep weed taproots all conspire to make the process time consuming and back breaking. Sure, you can rent a heavy-duty rototiller, but you still have to deal with the clods of grass roots and unyielding clay clumps. So, I decided to go the raised bed route – four 4-foot by 8-foot beds, each a foot deep.

You’re thinking – sure, but you still have to make the bed frames and haul yards of dirt. True, but I am using some wonderful raised bed corners, suggested by our garden writer, Barbara Pleasant, and available from Lee Valley Tools. What a marvelous invention these corners are. As you can see from the photo, the 2-by-6 lumber just slips into sleeves on the stakes. AND, you can add a second (or third) stake and sleeves to the top of the first one, to make the bed 12 inches (or more) high. It is suggested you strengthen the unit by putting a screw into each sleeve/board team, which we have done. This should help keep the boards from bowing outwards due to the pressure from the dirt.

Speaking of dirt – I would love to start planting this weekend, but have four plus cubic yards of the brown stuff to move from the driveway to the new beds. Soooooooooooo – it’s party time! We've invited a bunch of friends to a barbecue on Saturday – we’ll provide the food and we hope our guests will provide a bit of muscle power and help us to move the dirt!! I’ll let you know next week how successful this venture turns out to be.

I did mow the yard last weekend and used some of the lovely, aromatic clippings in the garden box where some garlic is happily growing. This week I’ll save the clippings to use as mulch in the new raised beds. We have had four neighbors ask about the beds and jokingly put in their order for fresh veggies this summer. I do hope to produce enough to share.

If you have had success with unique urban food production, share your experiences in the comments section below.

Last week I shared with you my upcoming move to an urban homestead home. 

Well, it has all happened! The boxes are being unpacked, the herbs are anxious to get into the ground and we hope this weekend to build the four raised beds in the backyard.

As with most moves there have been a few “adjustments.” The biggest was the appearance of a small springlet, after a sudden downpour, in what we thought was a very dry basement. Surprise! As our realtor said, “There is not a dry basement in an old home in town.” How comforting. But he did refer us to the venerable foundation man, who we are hoping will have a sure-fire solution to the problem - today.

As the movers were unpacking the truck, I discovered the metal garbage can I use to store bird seed. I had put the feeders into the can just before moving. So, I got out the feeders, hung them from a wrought iron planter stand and filled them with seed. To my surprise, within a couple of hours English sparrows, and pairs of house finches, cardinals and ring-necked doves were at the feeder. Just like that, the word went around the neighborhood that a new fast-food joint had opened.

I noticed two bunnies in the neighbor’s yard. My Boston terrier noticed them, too. I am hoping she will be my garden guardian against the hungry hoard. But first, we need a fence to keep her from running down the driveway and a dog door so she can let herself out. More to come next week!

For eight months I have been anticipating sharing this news with you – I am moving!!! Not a big move as moves go, only about 5 miles, in fact. But the change in the neighborhood atmosphere will, I hope, be substantial.

I currently reside in a suburban setting in a four bedroom, 2,300-square-foot house. A reduction in the size of my family has signaled this is a good time to reduce my eco-footprint in general and downsize to a considerably smaller abode – 1,300 square feet (with a full, clean, dry basement) to be specific. The basement will be a necessary repository for the canning jars, books, scrapbooks, photos, kids stuff, etc. that there is no room for on the main level. In addition to a smaller house, the yard will be about half the size of my current one. But it’s a clean slate, no gardens at the moment.

Why, you might wonder, am I sharing this life change with you? Well, I am looking at this move as an opportunity to engage in urban homesteading. Does that mean filling the whole lot with veggies and fruit and a small coop for chickens? Not exactly, although I do plan on constructing four raised beds to continue my love of fresh tomatoes, garlic, potatoes, strawberries and raspberries – ahhhhh! For me, homesteading is as much about developing community as it is about growing tomatoes. Where would our homesteading ancestors have been without the support and cooperation of their friends and neighbors? The historical neighborhood I’m moving to may not have a blacksmith or wheelwright shop, but it does have a neighborhood florist, a church where all the community meetings are held, a park for barbecues, potlucks, parades and plant swaps, and folks I’ve already discovered who are avid gardeners. Certainly they will be interested in trading bulbs and seeds, and sharing their gardening successes and failures.

By locating in an historic downtown community, I’ll also be within bicycle range of the library, my own church and the Saturday farmer’s market. It’s been 45 years since I explored on a bike and I’m looking forward to the experience.

Over the next few months I plan to share my urban homesteading adventures with you, including some photos, as soon as I learn how to download from a digital camera – there’s always something new to learn!

If you have had some experience with urban homesteading, share your story in the comments section below.

Self-Sufficient-ish – a wonderful phrase for what the authors refer to as their urban guide to almost self-sufficiency. Dave and Andy Hamilton, of the UK, are founders of an interactive Web site (www.selfsufficientish.com), and a book just out this year: The Self Sufficient-ish Bible – An Eco-living Guide for the 21st Century.

The philosophy that drives both the book and Web site is that many people would love to give up their job, move to the country and grow all of their own food, but the reality is that few of us will ever be able to accomplish all of that. So, in the meantime, Dave and Andy have gathered a whole passel of information on growing your own food, brewing your own alcohol, collecting wild food and a host of other practical and useful tips for becoming self-sufficient-ish in an urban setting.

The tone is definitely British, but the tips are universal.