Here's the thing: I don't know anything about gardening. And that really bothers me. Knowledge is power, and freedom. My ignorance keeps me from being self-sustaining, and feeds my underlying anxiety of dependence to industrial food production, and even on external, albeit organic, food production. Since last year, I've made some improvements. I've cut some of my whole foods shopping sprees by subscribing to a CSA and bike down to the farmers markets after class on Sundays.
But I remember how powerful and independent I felt when I learned to cook. Learning to grow is the next step! Gardening seemed like such a new world, however, that with all my desire, I got overwhelmed.
Clearly, it was time to call in some professional help. So we called up Matt Van Diepen, owner of Urban Home Gardens in Mar Vista. Matt agreed to take up the task of taking out scraggly dirt lot into a thing of organic beauty.
Here are some "Pre" pictures of our backyard, that, despite the artistic glare, really aren't pretty. We've got an old chicken coop in our backyard. Lots of boards, stones, dirt but not the healthy kind, an old monitor....really. This actually isn't the real before picture- that would just be too much to look at. This shows how Matt segregated a section of our backyard essentially plowed it.
Here's stage 1. Matt comes over to our house.
Kimi and him plan out the backyard (I'm away at the moment). Kimi is attempting to plan out aesthetics, while Matt is calculating exactly where our backyard gets optimal sun. He segregates the area, tills the soil and gives us instructions on how to water it. The next days, he's over with shovels, pick axes, and a whole bunch of mulch on a rubber carpet.
Kimi, Kimi's brother Tommy, and I gather around and attempt to help, waiting for Matt's instructions on how to best approach the topic.
Matt throws the leaves into the central garden plot and shows us how to combine them with the existing soil. He divides up the ground using the boards and rocks in the area, and show us how, already, our soil is becoming more fertile. We have good land here, he says. We just have to dig it up.
Check out our escapades below;
