Urban Farmer

Thursday I came home and put down Weedban, the Fertrell product that takes care of crabgrass.  I put this on my front, grassy yard and in the back as well.  The back right now is a mess since the dogs run it, but this is where the garden project is focused so anything I can do to help the soil will be good.  Weedban is a natural product made from corn and is effective against common weeds.  Read more about their products on their website…

In the last couple of days I began to ponder the fact that with body work I do a lot of energy techniques.  What if I did the same with the garden?  The first thing that popped into my mind was to put in a labyrinth!  And I know exactly where to put it – on the flatter, open area toward the chain link fence on the southwest side. 

Why would I do this?  What is a labyrinth?  This is from mountainvalleycenter.com:

LABYRINTHS: The universal mystical meaning of the labyrinth form is as a symbol for the journey into the world of spirit and the return, a leaving of one state and a rebirth into another.

The Classical Seven-path Labyrinth is not a maze within which to get lost, but rather a single winding pathway in and out again.

Labyrinths are known as sacred gateways and have been found at ancient sites around the world. Often found at the center of subtle earth energies these temples enhance, balance, and regenerate both the auric field and the Earth itself.

Labyrinths have been associated with ancient pilgrimage routes and rituals of self-discovery. They were worn as a form of protection and ornamentation and were often carved on doorways to bless a dwelling.

Labyrinths are time windows, portals where time stands still. They confirm our unity with the cosmos, awaken our vital force, and elevate our consciousness. They are known to facilitate altered states of consciousness and have parallels with reincarnation, initiation, prosperity, and fertility rites.

The Classical Seven-path Labyrinth resonates with the vibration of “seven” and has a direct correlation with the primary Chakras, Tones in the scale, and colors of the rainbow. It is believed that the action of “dancing” a labyrinth magically activates its inherit powers!

The Labyrinth is equated with the brain, and many cultures believe that the Labyrinth could cure illness. The action of moving through the Labyrinth produces a sense of well-being and balance through a type of vestibular stimulation, accessing both left and right hemispheres of the brain.

The next problem is to find a design I can adapt.  It won’t be able to be too large but hopefully will be large enough to be effective.  There is a Sisters of Mercy Retreat Center here in St Louis that has a labyrinth:

Labyrinth

I could model this one or do some more research and find other designs.

Here is a site that shows how to lay out the classic seven-circuit ‘seed pattern’.

So now I’ll go out and lay it out and see if I really have enough room.  May need to incorporate some of the flower planting so it can all fit.

See you in the garden!

Jon
Urban Farmer

I mentioned early on that I wanted some fruit trees and that espalier trees would be the way to go.

Did some research and found this really wonderful site with pictures and great information.  Vintage Garden Gal has a blog that actually has great stuff about lots of topics including container gardening and the backyard vineyard.  I’ll personally be going back often!

Here’s the info on espalier trees.  Discovered they need a south or west facing wall so am thinking about putting them on the west side of the gazebo and on the south side of the porch, making an “L”.  Maybe the grape vines will go in the “crook” of the L on the slope that is there, which would also give them a south facing orientation.  More on that later.

See you in the Garden!

Jon

Enjoy Vintage Garden Gal’s site while you are there.

I plugged “garden pictures” into the Google search bar and in 0.06 seconds came up with 85,200,000!  Needless to say I didn’t look at them all!  Went through the first 54 and actually looked at the ones that interested me.  There was a wealth of designs and varieties.

Got some really good ideas.

Like using branches and twigs for trellises, different materials and designs for the raised beds, one especially great idea for the slope which makes a large majority of the backyard.  Layout of flowers, colors, types offered a wealth of ideas and a lot of drooling!

Here is the list of links I came up with, rather than the actual pictures (no copyright problems that way).  Feel free to click and enjoy and follow some of the blogs that pop up which have lots of other info.

Flower bed

Japanese Garden and Meditation Centre – similar to what I want to do but mine won’t be so fancy!

Staten Island Botanical Garden

Ben Rau Memorial Garden – this one is where I live and I didn’t even know it!

Raised Bed Gardens

Flowers in a Garden

Flower Bed

Flower Bed, raised

Planning a Garden – patio and edging

Landscaping Design – Cottage Garden

How to Build a Diamond-Patterned Twig Trellis

Connecticut Kitchen Garden (Fence plus other type beds)

Bed and Breakfast Gardens, great idea for sloped backyard like mine

Modesto Garden Club – 9 Demonstration Gardens
plus,  How to Build a Therapeutic Garden Box - This would begin a second tier of planting space in appropriate places.

Sample with some good ideas

Lots of great ideas in Ontario, with rustic trellis designs

Wow, that is some good stuff and gets the juices flowing.  Will ponder on it, start looking at trees and start perusing catalogs for flowers that I want to use.

See you in the garden!

Jon

In further thinking about what I want in this reworked space I MUST have Wildflowers!!

Here’s why!

Have been listening over and over to Gerald O’Donnell of ARVARI (another part of my Renegade Life – read more about that on my Renegade Doc Comments blog) and at the end of one session he says this about wildflowers:

Surround yourself with flowers, especially wild ones, for they are a vibrational portal to the nonphysical realm of the Supreme Implicate, Quantum Order, the level of the  One, the realm of Divine Light.  They were created for pure joy and beauty.

Mankind has always understood instinctively that they manifest and symbolically represent Love here on Earth in order to easily cross this portal and experience the other side.

Feel and become the vibrations of flowers and merge with them.  Experience different types of flowers, and especially the ones that  you feel particularly attracted to.  They are a major balancing factor between Man and Nature, a portal that allows for a total healing and realignment of Man’s energies to be established.

Have you ever smelled the sweet fragrance of flowers when none were present?  These were the moments when the Creator’s hand and Heaven’s Love were upon you.

If scientists were to study the patterns created by the vibrations of flowers they would find defininte characteristics in them that, although different from Man’s biostatic fields, can be matched up to Man’s pattern….  Connect yourself closely to nature for its Love and Energy are limitless.

This is what I am talking about!  This is the reason for this spot/this backyard to be transformed in the first place.

So there will definitely be flowers and wildflowers, maybe “wildly” tossed into the mix??

See you in the garden,

Jon

P.S. ARVARI is found here and my Renegade Doc Comments Blog here.  If you decide to purchase anything from Gerald’s site I might make a little bit (disclaimer).

As can be seen in the video in the first post, my backyard is a combination of sloped areas and flatter areas due to some “terracing” of sorts either with landscape timbers or stones, of sunny areas and shady.  This makes for a challenge, for sure.

Perusing some more the garden design site revealed some great ideas.  This page has some great ideas for shady areas, including both flowers and vegetables.  One page taught how to make a water fountain.  I’m starting to see the lower shady area looking like some flowers with a border of shade vegetables surrounding a water fountain with a chair to sit and relax (in the shade).  Maybe a rabbit hutch in the corner to provide some superb manure.

There is a page dedicated to herb gardening (my favorite).  Perhaps the rounded stone-edged bed with the birdbath in the center would be a great place to locate that!

One page showed fruit trees espalied against a wall.

This was how I was planning to grow mine as well.  Maybe either against the basement wall that faces west or against the neighbors fence on the south side or along the slope beside the deck on the south side??  Will have to do a bit more research about this.

Things are starting to take form in my head.  Need to put it down on paper…

See you in the garden!

Jon

Urban Farmer
Renegade Doc

Today we got the autoresponder set up so readers can follow along more easily. As you check your email you will get notices of new postings. This will also be set up to a blog broadcaster so when you join the list you will be notified of new postings when they occur. With the RSS feed set up you can add the postings to your reader or you can also subscribe via email through the RSS feed. Technology is amazing, isn’t it?

We would really like the readers to comment, add their ideas and point to resources that would help all of us!

I am also going to post a separate “Resources” page to keep a running tally of books, web sites, and other helps as they come along.

Enough set up stuff.

I did a search on “designing gardens” and found a nice site that had lots of ideas. It also had some informatin about raised bed gardening. Why raised beds? Because from my past experience this is the only way to go. This site gives some of the rationale. So you can be pretty sure the final design will have some raised beds.

And that’s all for today!

Talk soon,

Jon,

Urban Farmer
Health Merchant

One of the things that made me the Renegade Doc was both a love for gardening and independence and growing my own food, as well as understanding the connection between food and health.  In medical school I took the time and made the effort to have the fence row vegetable garden.  When we got the first home when practicing medicine in Virginia the herb garden when in by the side porch and the raised beds took up my day off each week.  The apple trees and grape vines on that property took me to a whole different place and new experiences.  From there the move to the organic farm in Swoope, VA added animal husbandry with raising sheep, goats, cows, rabbits,  chickens and turkeys.

Moving to St Louis took me out of the country but didn’t take the country out of me.  One friend called me the “urban farmer!”  During this time massage entered my life along with the need to generate more cash, so the gardening got pushed off into lawn care and an attempt to convince clients that organic fertilizer would be more healthy for them.

There has always been this tension between wanting to be the farmer or the healer and it’s been tough to know which one to emphasize.  Finally, the just basic love of and need to be connected to ground has taken over.  The marketing/money thing can take care of itself – I’m not good at that.  The healer part is just who I am and will always be there and active even when just talking to people; the part that crosses over into the massage room will be even better.  Now here we are, looking at the back yard and dreaming about where the vines and fruit trees and veggies are going to go.

And while we are at it, why not let others walk the process with me?

So yesterday, the beautiful day that it was, found me out in the back yard doing the pre-project video, right after tearing out a lot of dead lilac bush.  Following that was learning how to capture the video off the camcorder and posting it to a channel on YouTube.  Here is that video:

Today it will be setting up the blog and autoresponder so folk can follow along if they wish.

Am also spending some time thinking, pondering, designing what I want and where.

There are some criteria that will guide me:

General

Has to be sustainable and organic with results based on soil fertility and not just numbers
Will use the principles of  permaculture and layered production

Raised beds
greenhouse?
row covers
solar seed starter?

Has to be pretty and a place where I want to go to relax and meditate and connect to spirit

Plants

Vegetables
Flowers, maybe edible?
Herbs
Fruit – strawberries, grapes at least
Trees – fruit (apples, pears?), nuts (walnuts, ?)

Animals (?) – have to be small and quiet and producing usable products

Rabbits? – manure
Chickens? – a few for digging, eggs?
Bees? – pollination, honey?

We’ll use lots of resources.  My own bookcase has a lot of stuff collected over the years.  The internet is almost limitless with text and videos and how-tos.

Should be fun!

Jon
Urban Farmer