The Urban Agriculture Files

For some reason, our seedlings are FABULOUS this year. Of course, the soil needs work, and on the recommendation of another lady who grows, by many people's account, the best garden ever, and does so right here in east El Paso, we've spent many days hauling bag after bag of cow manure and compost from Lowes to our house, to chop into the sand. We seem to be making some headway, and knowing it's possible helps. This summer, we should have cantaloupes, tomatoes, beans, and squash, in addition to a bunch of types of flowers, some of which are familiar to us, and some of which are not. Either way, hopefully it works. Right now, out of the 36 cells we planted in tomatoes, 23 are up, with more popping out of the soil every time we check on them. Our cantaloupes sprouted almost 100%, as did our sunflowers. Our basil is beginning to sprout quite a few, and although we're still waiting on the parsley, we expected that since that's a slower germinating seed.

Later in the summer, we're going to begin our pumpkin starts. We'll have pie pumpkins as well as jack-o-lantern ones. If they grow well, we'll probably sell the ones we don't need. I mean, how many pumpkins can one family really use? We'll have at least a small surplus if we have much success at all with growing them.

Yeah, all we need is a chicken coop and a dairy goat, and we'd have our own little hacienda right here in a city of 2 million! Since we can't have that, we're just happy to have our vegetables, flowers, and fruits, for our own use or with a surplus, growing our way right here where Uncle Sam dropped us. Urban agriculture. It rocks.