2012 Garden Planning

Winter seems to have not really come at all here in central Virginia; sure, we had a six-inch snow fall not too long ago, but that exception to the weather really proved the rule that this was a very, very mild winter. Spring fever thus hit a bit early, so I have been itching to get my hands dirty in the garden. Unfortunately, there is nothing to be done directly during this season, and so I have directed my energy into planning. I have realized that if I don't plan very specifically when I am going to start seeds, double-dig beds, transplant, and sow seeds outdoors, all these things will happen very late (I think last year, for instance, we did not get peppers into the ground until late June or early July. Very bad.)

I have posted a page "Garden Planning" above, which consists of a chart with columns for each crop; the number of plants per square-foot; the date for starting seeds indoors (if necessary); the date for transplanting; the date for starting seeds outdoors; and the date of the earliest likely harvest.

Here are the steps I used in planning this chart:

1. Plan out the crops we will grow based on what we actually eat. Surpluses are good, of course: it is a blessing to be able to give food away to friends. However, there is an opportunity cost to growing a ridiculous surplus, because that garden space could have been used to grown something else you really needed. (For instance, I really wanted to grow some butternut squash because Kristie makes this incredible squash soup. But then, when polling my family, I found out that I was the only one who really liked the soup. Squash takes up so much space, so for us, that space could be better used for something else)

2. Determine the last spring frost date. Many in this area push the envolope on this one, but I am playing it conservative and using Saturday, May 5 as my last spring frost date. The timing of everything is based on this: when to start seeds indoors, when to transplant, everything. I could push that date forward a bit, but I figure with the work involved in starting seeds early, I am already getting a head-start: why risk unnecessarily risk damage from a late, unexpected chill?

3. Using chart "Outdoor Planting Schedule for Spring and Summer Crops" on page 254 of Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening, I came up with all the dates to seeds starting, transplanting, sowing outdoors, and expected harvest. Notice that all my dates are on Saturday, because that's the one day I can reliably accomplish these tasks.

This chart, then, gives me my marching order from week to week. Apart from this kind of planning, I know way too many vital tasks would be neglected.

Small is Beautiful

I have been out of the blogging world for some time now, but this is not a confession (I have not sinned, father). I have been doing what any good monk would do: attending to the daily-ness of life, which in my case includes “making a living,” loving my wife and kids, making garden plans, attending to the chickens, preparing sermons on a bi-weekly basis.

Not surprisingly, I have discovered over the past few months that being at home most of the time is absolutely delightful. Most weeks, I do not get in my car at all between the time I return from church on Sunday, and Thursday morning when I go meet a young man I am tutoring and discipling. Every time I get in the car after a four-day hiatus, I thank God that He has given me a life wherein I do not combat the franticness of the American rat race.

After several months of not running the rat race, of not pursuing the big rock candy mountain, I am finally beginning to see what St. Benedict and others were talking about when they emphasized the monastic virtue of stability. Stay where you are; dwell in one place; be at home; become, as Wes Jackson puts it, “native to this place.” The settling effect that staying put has on one’s soul is astounding.

And so, after being away from blogging for several months, I come back to this page with a fresh perspective. For instance, I realized that the header up top included these words:

“We hope and pray that this (all the previously mentioned things) will serve as a down payment for bigger things to come: more acreage, more animals, more opportunities to care for God's creation and to minister to the community.”

More, more, more. Suddenly, I found those words offensive, the very antithesis of what I want to be. Those words revealed a fundamental discontent and restlessness on my part. The message was clear: where I am now is fine (I guess…), but I want more. And sure, I could couch it in respectable-sounding spiritual platitudes (just like the oft-heard “I just want to serve God even more” or “I just want to do something big for God”). But it took this period of real-life grounding to get me to see that discontent for what it was. I have since revised it.

So lately, I have reflected much upon something that all true sages agree: that we all tend to over-inflate our own importance, and we all tend to have on to a personal-kingdom agenda that is over-inflated. Consider what the sages say:

-“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed." Jesus Christ
-“Think little.” Wendell Berry
-“Small is beautiful.” E.F. Schumacher
-“Ambition can creep as well as soar.” Edmund Burke

Like many, I have been the willing victim of the American Dream, which subtly takes on many guises. There is a spiritual version of the American Dream, which more or less says that we need to do Big Things for God to show ourselves worthy partakers of his kingdom. But the wisdom of the ages demurs: the sages tell us over and over again to put a cap on our ambitions, to be loyal not to the Big Idea and the Big Cause, but rather to our wife and children and mother and father and brothers and sisters and neighbors.

What does this mean for King’s Cross Farm? I have too long harbored the dream of a 30-acre farm. I have now put that aside. If God wants to plop that into my lap, un-looked-for, then great. It’s his kingdom; he makes the rules. But until then, King’s Cross Farm is simply my family, our suburban home, and the multiplication of our labors in the lives of those around us. If somehow I can teach a few other people to see the wisdom of the ancient spiritual disciplines…if we can model a family life that is life-giving and productive rather than simply consumptive…if we can inspire just a few others around us to garden a small plot, to keep a few chickens, to start a compost pile to increase soil fertility…if we can do these small things—plant these tiny mustard seeds—then King’s Cross Farm will have played its role in the Kingdom of God.

What is a Farm?

For a long time now, I have joked that we live on a “farm.” Sure, a suburban farm, but a farm nonetheless. I am fully aware that naming it such will raise objections from some quarters; but when my own children raised objections to the naming, I thought some clarifications were in order.

Let’s start with definitions. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a “farm” is:

1. “a tract of land devoted to agricultural purposes” or
2. “a plot of land devoted to the raising of animals and especially domestic livestock.”

That sounds reasonable enough (yes, there are a number of other definitions offered that are not relevant for this discussion: “a letting out of revenues for a fixed sum to one authorized to collect and retain them,” etc.).

So, do we have a “farm” in this sense? Absolutely? With our land, we have:
1. an area set aside for gardening
2. an area set aside for raising laying chickens
3. a lawn that has several agricultural functions
a. the lawn provides the bulk of materials used in the compost operation (last year, I am guessing that I made a ton and a half of compost)
b. the lawn will be used to raise meat chickens this summer (according to Joel Salatin, 30% of a broiler chicken’s dietary needs can be met by grass and clover)
4. small areas set aside for herbs and blueberries
5. an area set aside for composting (that’s a huge farm in itself: billions upon billions of microorganisms, along with earthworms and other second-tier feeders)
6. an area set aside for worm composting (the bin right now consists of probably 3,000 worms, happily munching away at horse manure)

Yes, yes, the objector might say: but a farm is supposed to be productive. Fine: here is what we produced in the past 12 months:

1. approximately 100 dozen eggs
2. a dozen whole chickens
3. tomatoes
4. potatoes
5. corn
6. peppers
7. sorghum
8. zucchini
9. beans
10. strawberries
11. blueberries
12. 1.5 tons of compost
13. worms for chicken feed
14. several batches of worm castings
15. lettuce
16. broccoli
17. basil, basil, basil!
18. rosemary
19. thyme

This coming year, we plan to produce all the above, plus:
1. apples
2. comfrey
3. black soldier fly grubs (that will raise some eyebrows, so I’ll have to do another post on that sometime)
4. a greatly expanded compost operation
5. a greatly expanded vermicompost (worm compost) system

The biggest objection to calling our home a “farm,” is—of course—its diminutive size. “We all know” that a “real farm” must consist of at least 500 chickens, or 100 head of cattle, or 500 acres of monocultured grains.

Many things can be said in response to this objection, but I’ll limit my response to a very simple one: says who? By what standard is a “farm” to include only large operations, whose sole purpose is to maximize profits (while usually depriving the land of its fertility)? Who is doing the defining here?

I am confident that the future of food is in the direction of smaller, decentralized, localized production. I hope to live to see the increasing realization of Thomas Jefferson’s dream for America: a nation of highly educated gentlemen farmers, who are not enslaved to distant corporate interests.

In anticipation of that dream becoming a reality, I am going to continue to call our home a “farm,” regardless of the snickers and raised eyebrows.

Belated Update #1: Job and Vocation

Good day, all. It has been waaaaaay too long since I’ve updated this blog, so it is time to remedy that. My lame excuse (I know, “lame excuse” is redundant) is that I have been working days with a home builder these last few weeks. Since I’m not 18 anymore, I am done, beat, exhausted by the end of the day. By the time we eat, have family worship, play, read, and get the kids to bed, I have been spent.

Speaking of job: as I mentioned, I have been working as a sort of carpenter’s assistant for the past month or so, just to bridge the gap between income from the previous job and income that is incoming for the next job. Two things I discovered working a physically demanding job day in and day out: one, my flesh revolts against it; but also two, it is highly satisfying. It was a big reminder and confirmation that the monastic way of life has it right, for it seeks to find a harmonious balance between prayer, study, rest, and physical labor. Each activity reinforces the other three. Physical labor without prayer, without study, and without rest imposes a tyrannical burden not only on one’s body, but also on one’s soul. On the other hand, prayer without physical labor becomes Gnostic; study without physical labor leads to weariness of mind; and rest without physical labor is rarely refreshing. And so I am thankful for the carpentry job not only for the income it provided, but also for the perspective it gave me on monastic living. Thank you, Jeremy!

And now, my main “job” is going to be a part-time teacher with Veritas Press Scholars Academy (http://resource2.veritaspress.com/Resources/Scholars_Online/Scholars_Online_Main.html). I have one class of Logic, one class of Omnibus III, and three classes of Omnibus II. “Omnibus” is simply a great books curriculum that integrates the teaching of history, literature, and theology all in one. I’m very excited about the opportunity, as the classes I’m teaching are right up my alley, the curriculum I’m teaching from is excellent, and the folks at Veritas are wonderful to work with. This is an online teaching job where I log on and teach live with 10-20 students per class, so I have to be in front of my computer at specific times throughout the week, unlike other online programs where you simply grade papers and monitor bulletin board discussions.

I took this job with Veritas by faith, knowing full well that by taking it on even a part-time basis, I was shutting the door on potential full-time job offers. But it was a door that God opened, and we believed it would have been faith-less to not walk through the door in order to wait for something “better.” God reveals what we need to know when we need to know it. Even this job illustrates that: when I was first offered the job, it included only two classes. Within 24 hours of accepting that very, very part-time job, I was offered a third class. And a few weeks later, a teacher resigned and I inherited his classes, so I am up to five. For a husband and father of four children to earn an adequate living doing this kind of work, he needs to be teaching eight classes, plus whatever summer work he can muster. So yes, we have an income gap, but we are learning to trust God to “give us this day our daily bread.”

There are jobs, and then there are vocations. Jobs are things you do to generate cash flow. Vocations are unique callings from God to do something that He has created you uniquely to do. For some people, their job is their vocation, and their vocation is their job; for such people, their joy runs very deep. But for most people, their job and their vocation remain separated; often, such people become alienated and cynical.

My hope, my dream, was that King’s Cross Farm would become a reality quickly so that it could be not only my vocation, but also my job. Right now, God is saying “wait.” That wait could go on for quite some time, maybe indefinitely. Perhaps God is providing part-time work to keep my free to pursue King’s Cross in a way that I could not with a full-time job. But what I have learned in my own life, and through other people, is that it is exactly during those waiting periods, when nothing seems to be happening, when all human plans and aspirations seem to have come to a standstill, that God is most at work.

Belated Update #2: The “Farm”

Many people have asked me and Kristie the question, “so, what is happening at the farm?” So a little clarification is in order. As the above caption says, King’s Cross Farm is a Christian monastic farm in the making. For those who are familiar with the theological lingo applied to eschatology, King’s Cross Farm is already here, but not yet in full form.

What this means is that “the farm” is still our ½ acre lot in the suburbs of Lynchburg. Sure, we have five laying hens (we just added one this summer) and a garden and a compost pile. And we have learned a lot about God’s creation through caring for these things. And as a family, we practice hospitality, and study, and do all those things that a monastic community would do. It’s just happening on a very small scale.

So for those who think a “farm” is a large-scale operation with dozens of cows to milk and a bunch of pigs to feed and a herd of sheep to shear and flocks of hens and roosters to attend to, and hundreds of acres of corn to harvest….well, no, we don’t have that. We are still praying to that end. But for now, the “farm” is our humble abode, where we are trying to be faithful to what God has given us, in the hopes that if He sees fit, it could grow.

Belated Update #3: Incorporation

We moderns have this pernicious habit of thinking that something is real when the civil government says so, and only when they say so. Thus, the thinking goes, someone is really married when they have a marriage certificate to authenticate it. One cannot go into business until he has a license; one cannot begin to build a house until he gets a permit. By this logic, I suppose one does not really exist unless there is a birth certificate to validate his existence.

All that is to say that King’s Cross Farm would exist whether or not the government believes it exists. Nevertheless, I have sought to get our little operation “approved” by the scribes of Babylon so that, down the road, should anyone like to contribute to the ministry, he or she can do and reduce the amount of taxes they have to pay to said Babylonian scribes.

And so, step one has been completed: King’s Cross Farm is now recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia as a “non-stock corporation” that is licensed to do business. For some, that means it is now “real.” The next step is then to pursue tax-exempt status through the IRS.

To me, this is just a formality; but for others, this is a big deal, as it does create at least a perception of legitimacy. And yes, the fact that people can give to the ministry and deduct the contribution from the taxes is a big deal.

Belated Update #4: The near future and the more distant future

This past summer was a good one, though it did not go as expected. My goals were three-fold:

1. To learn more about farming and gardening
2. To get training in spiritual formation
3. To learn more about how to really help the poor

I was able to accomplish goal #1, volunteering my time a few times a week to help Holly Brown with her large-scale garden down at Island Creek Farm. Holly is very knowledgeable, and I learned a lot from her during those few weeks.

Unfortunately, by mid-summer, the checking account was getting a bit low, and so I had to get a temporary job to make ends meet. And so, I was not able to really pursue goals #2 and #3 the way I had wanted to. But as I mentioned in a previous post, working as a carpenter’s assistant was itself an exercise in spiritual formation—not the kind I would have signed up for, but the kind that God signed me up for, and I trust his curriculum better than mine. And even though I did not have the opportunity to work with local area food banks and volunteer my time with Gleaning for the World or Society of St. Andrew, I am learning what it means to be poor: I am learning that security comes not from a regular salary, but from God alone. We are not living paycheck to paycheck anymore: we are living from bill to bill. Perhaps being in this difficult place financially (even though we are far from poor in the Third World sense) is exactly the kind of “training” I need to truly empathize with the poor.

So really, I should not have started the previous paragraph with “unfortunately.” God, as always, knows exactly what He is doing.

For now, our near future consists of trying to scratch out a living in this perplexing American economy.

And as we look to the more distant future, we are praying that God will act. Yes, we would love it if God made it possible to acquire some acreage that includes a good home, a guest home (what Dorothy Day would call a “House of Hospitality”), and a decent amount of pastureland, so that we can more fully incarnate the vision of King’s Cross. And so, as the Scriptures constantly remind us, we are waiting, but also watching.