2008

  • Solar oven trial
  • Outdoor box dehydrator
  • Solar energy
  • Greenhouse
  • Improve soil quality near road
  • Fruit trees
  • Expand cultivated areas
  • Prep for animals
  • Sheds
  • Rain barrels
  • Rain gardens
  • Plant hedges as a dust barrier (live near gravel road)

2007

  • Drip irrigation additions
  • Try growing leeks for the first time
  • Break new ground to expand garden (currently 50′ x 50′ on the hill; want hill growing space to double)
  • Research native grasses for front yard
  • Bird feeders
  • Bat boxes

2006

  • Start a garden blog
  • Purchase canning supplies
  • Intern at a farm (CSA, preferably)
  • Drip irrigation supplies
  • Try growing cardoons
  • San Francisco this year–bring back seeds (try Japantown)

2005

  • Frustrating year at work–I feel like Schor’s “overworked american,” with hollow accomplishements to boot. I can’t imaging growing anything this year. I have to leave. My wiser friend tells me “Be the change you wish to see.” This reminds me of the Alice Walker quote, ““Look closely at the present you are constructing. It should look like the future you dream of.”
  • Expand pepper varieties
  • Buy deep freezer
  • Eggs–some sort of protein added to our diet
  • Research rammed earth construction

2004

  • Tried blogging for a few months on ResponsibleShopper.blogspot.com–nearly impossible to shop responsibly (nothing from China, no produce from too far away) without a great deal of planning–question is, does the average American have this kind of time? How do we shift our values to give more time to this?

2003

  • Italy this year! Visit gardens
  • Try to bring back Italian seeds
  • Read Sustainable Planet book and have some hope. I love the New American Dream website.

2002

  • Cold frames
  • Research Community Gardens for Schools
  • Natural pest-deterrents
  • Research permaculture and passive solar techniques for homes (Susanka?)

2001 (Current Homestead)

  • Clean up all the trash in the yard (chains, metal, nails, etc)
  • Buy tiller to break ground
  • Break up a 20′ x 15′ plot to garden in yard immediately behind house
  • Use no-till methods to start killing off grass in area at the back of acre, up the hill
  • Find material to smother grass (used old upholstery fabric found for free at work)
  • Truth About Fast Food book freaking me out
  • So inspired by the Path to Freedom folk
  • Researching diesel…wish I had money to buy a diesel car to play with–

2000 (Liberty)

  • Set up a garden at least 15′ x 15′
  • Tomatoes
  • Cucumbers
  • Zucchini
  • Basil (lots of basil varieties at the farmer’s market! trying thai basil)
  • Eggplant
  • Reading Juliet Schor’s Overspent American book, and now trying to finish off all her books. I don’t want to be an overworked, overspent American. Must work on wanting less…what do I need? Why do I need it?
  • Is this the right place to live, to live the way we want?
  • Too many cats

1999 (Joplin)

  • Investigate Straw Bale construction in Southern Missouri
  • Try making candles out of Mullein stalks
  • Research wild edibles (Euell Gibbons?)
  • Find morel mushrooms
  • Learn to grow tomatoes in pots (soil is horrible in yard)

1998 (Fairview)

  • Chard
  • Peas (*not worth growing for canning)
  • Tomatoes
  • Try drip irrigation
  • Reading Diet for a Small Planet and On the Good Land–want to be love child of Michael Ableman and Frances Lappé–seriously, though…even 20 years ago we struggled with the idea that there was enough food, just not in the right places…what now?

1997 (St. Louis)

  • House sitting for teacher–family in an urban location with small potager (my teacher is French)
  • They have herbs they use to make their tea directly from what they grow in the garden–something that sounded like “Val-ver”–green valley?
  • Despite all my biology and botany classes and my fascination with growing, I don’t feel comfortable going out there and just pulling something up to make tea with. This can’t be right. I need to fix this–once I graduate, this needs to be taken care of…