Category — Garden

We currently have two different planting areas in the backyard: a large vegetable garden at the bottom of the yard on the long skinny side, and a smaller herb garden situated right alongside the current patio (spot that will someday soon be enveloped by the bricks we’ll be using to extend the patio quite a bit). I got a chance yesterday to snap some pictures of both areas.

Catnip blooms!

Herb garden:

Oregano

Rosemary

Chives

Sugar snap peas, with their viny fingers twisting around some fencing

One of several tomato varieties

And veggies!

Squash

My poor dead watermelon

Jalapenos, nrom nrom nrom

The watermelon seems to have been the only casualty in the garden so far, although I was afraid of losing my squash on a few occasions. The veggie garden doesn’t get as much sun as it probably should, so the plants are a little shorter than they might be otherwise, but they still seem to be thriving. I’ve noticed a few nibbles on the jalapeno leaves, and I suspect the bunnies in the neighborhood are trying to infiltrate the fence. My dear friend JoAnn gave me a haircut on the back patio last night, and I took all of the cut hair (there was A LOT, man) and tucked it in close to the outside of the fence to keep the rabbits away.

…with non-up-to-date pictures. These are the latest shots we’ve got of the garden, but since we took these, we’ve fenced in this plot, planted veggies, created an herb garden planter next to the patio, planted herbs, and done more work on the front. We’re behind on updates, I know! Here’s some preliminary eye candy:

Kevin sweeping up the back sidewalk

Our pile of apple wood (great for grilling!)

The sidewalk, that I edged by hand with a hook knife

Our vegetable garden plot, about 4'x25'

Ahh, tulips

I promise to get some more current photos of the progress tonight.

I was trying to do a little bit of research today on urban chicken-keeping in Iowa City, since I know that it used to be allowed and Kevin and I would really be interested in participating in it if it were possible. Apparently, his grandparents used to do it at their house over on Roosevelt Street, which is a cute little neighborhood pretty close to our house. After digging around a little on the city council website, I found the transcript to a special work meeting of the council from earlier this month when it was brought up (search the document for the word “chicken”). While a few of them sounded pretty dismissive of the idea, it seems like it could actually fly if addressed properly and if cases of it being successful in other cities were shown. Iowa City prides itself on being progressive, and two other very progressive towns in the US (in fact, ones that Iowa City loves to compare itself to) are currently allowing urban chicken-keeping: Madison, WI and Portland, OR. It sounded from the transcripts like they’d be willing to entertain the idea if shown the model these other cities used.

This is very exciting! Ever since reading my friend Alice’s LJ posts about visiting her friend Alia and having fresh eggs around, I’ve been dreaming of having a few in my backyard. Fresh eggs! Obviously, we wouldn’t be butchering them ever, and we’d only keep enough to have eggs to eat and share, may three or four. But oh, fresh eggs!

I’ve emailed the city councilman who brought the idea up at the meeting, to see what the process needs to be to approach the board, and also to see if he could put me in contact with the other citizens who brought it up to him, to see if we could form some sort of coalition or something. Self-sustainability is on the horizon, and this would be a big, huge step in that direction.

So, Madison and Portland friends, please let me know if you have any good resources about how your cities implemented their ordinances regarding urban chicken-keeping. I’ll be googling, but if you have any tips on where to look, I’m all ears.

Pictures taken by Alice in Portland, OR.