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City Plot


I am rather crafty in my basement, and have built a combination propane/coal fired forge in my garage. I like to garden and just this evening planted the wheat that I grew out this past year. The wheat came to me from a friend who went to Norway and found some growing wild out in front of a Viking age barrow mound. It has been really neat to have my own wheat patch. I started with three heads, and lost two of them in the first years planting because they were not labeled winter wheat. So once my farmer friend stopped laughing at me - he said that he had never ever seen what winter wheat looked like when it was planted in the spring - I planted the remaining head and from 19 wheat plants got enough seed this year to save out 6 heads and still plant an area of about 12 square feet.

It is really neat to talk to my farmer friends and talk about my 144 square foot garden and the number of wheat stalks I have in my "field". I live in the city and have a small backyard, and with small children to take care of and supply an area for them to play in my garden is small, but I had corn, potatoes, beans, tomatoes basil and pumpkins ( the pumpkins were an accident of poorly rotten compost.) I have been practicing growing food partially as a result of reading this list. I plant different things and see how they grow. I would have to work very hard to live off of 144 square feet, so I consider it an experiment. The corn was really good this year and I discovered that earwigs are the culprits that can wreak a crop.

Offered by Gus.

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