Last harvest

As I picked the very last of the peppers , I began to think once again I like doing this!
I always wonder at the last of the harvest year if I will indeed try again. Pulling these last peppers allowed me to reaffirm my faith in the hipness of urban farming.

It is not always an easy road to tread. Though I have never chosen the easy road or followed the path that most people take, maybe it is this willingness to take the less traveled road that allows me to see the value in farming in the central city and finding value in this ground.

There seems to be so much that we just throw away. We don't even compost it. Old houses in the central city are full of history and they have stood for at least one hundred years. There is a history to be preserved in these houses as manifestations of the the original city planning  and economy that gave way to the creation of suburbs. I would argue that central city neighborhoods are a manifestation of the history of labor and industry in our society.

Maybe urban homesteading is a way to preserve the history of the people who helped to create our society. Could there be lessons to learn? I don't know, but it seems we will never know as long as we just throw it away. Seeing a way to compost it all, repurpose it, upcycle it, create new growth. . . That would be interesting. However, there are more than just buildings, but people in central cities. I like to think that my little hip urban farm is like being at my grandmother's house. She lived in the city and I lived in the suburbs, but I always loved going to visit grandma. The point here is that there really is some interconnection of the city to places and people. And there are memes in our ways of living that keep us connected to each other.

There is value in the last harvest.  That value is way to hip for words, though I try to explain it. It's only the hip thing to do!

Hip Urban Farmer by Blog Librarian by Day : Burning Desire for Urban Farming?

Ever wonder where your burning desire to be an urban farmer comes from? Well the Roots of My Obsession is an interesting book for people who ponder just this question. Each chapter is written by a different author who reflects on where their desire to grow plants has come from.  These authors have no limit to what they grow. You can expect to read about the desire to grow flowers, vegetables, and just about anything else. The casual gardener may be intimidated by the fact that each author has as their profession some part of horticulture or agriculture. If you want to learn the specific names of plants, however, you will find this a fun read. Each author in reflecting on the roots of their obsession  provide seeds for growing ever more abundant in desire to learn and grow. But more importantly, this book will spur the hippest of urban farmers to reflect on the reasons, they start in January to make a plan laying out the crops in their backyard.