The decision to venture into the life of Urban Farming for my wife and I is quite odd. We didn’t wake up one morning and just declare that we were going to be “farmers”. No, it was subtle, sneaky. It tickled our brains like a Woolly Bear crawling around in our skulls.
I have always been a nerd/geek growing up in the city...well suburbs anyway. Computers, nuclear physics, comic books, and robotics consumed most of my thoughts and extra curricular reading times. I built my first light seeking robot (called The Moth) when I was twelve. I can currently program in several computer languages and my job as a Mechanical Designer keeps me going to work every day. I do love it.
My wife, on the other hand, grew up on a farm near a small town until she was 15 and then moved to the city. Lots of time spent working with family planting and harvesting, crafting, cooking, milking cows, growing up with hunters and her childhood involved a lot of being outside with the boys, learning that she needed to keep up with them. A woman not afraid of anything (except spiders). Her strength and stamina to this day still impresses me. She is my She-Hulk.
We fell in love, hard. Everything different about us seem to complement the other. We were two misplaced puzzle pieces in this picture of life that had managed to come together to complete a masterpiece. We were fascinated with each other’s experiences. She enjoyed listening to me go on a sci-tech ramble. I got her to play Dungeons & Dragons and currently our home features a sun-room that contains our gaming computers. I was astounded by her artwork, crafting abilities, and cooking experiences. I loved that she knew how to tend a flower garden and understood a lot about nature and foraging. I became enthralled with helping her dig in the dirt; separating rhizomes, and all kinds of other crazy things.
Our life together was always amazingly easy for the two of us together, with a very limited budget to live on for several years. Eventually I discovered I wanted to learn about a new, but very meticulous hobby. I wanted to learn how to make wine and meads. To begin with, I kept things as simple as possible, making very small test batches that were started in several washed out 2 liter Mountain Dew bottles, using some washrags, hair ties, baker’s yeast, and whatever all natural fruit juice I could get on the cheap. Oh, and several months of research. It turned into a passion for the both of us. For me, it was the science behind it...the metamorphosis of sugar into alcohol. For her, she enjoyed the nature of it; buying different kinds of fruits and discovering the best ways to extract the juices.
This hobby grew and we obtained more equipment. Finally purchasing buckets, hoses, carboys, thermometers, etc.. It is still a passion that burns like lava. I became disappointed in the quality and large price variations for produce and our vision developed into purchasing a moderate house with enough land to grow the fruits, spices, and vegetables I use in my wines. For her, it was a chance to get back to canning and working with the soil, knowing her green thumb was evergreen (haha!). We wanted to control the quality and cost of the ingredients we put in. Seeking to only include organic and fresh components. From there the plan evolved into desiring that way of life, for both of us.
Our long term goals include growing a variety of things to sell to the local community and growing to a point where we can acquire a larger tract of land (15 to 50 acres). Eventually, we will start a small winery that features everything that is grown.
In December of 2016 we began looking for a house to purchase that would fit our needs. Heather’s years of scouring through real estate sites, had helped us narrow down what we were looking for. During that time of looking, more research was done to flesh out our vision. We found this house in Raytown, MO and immediately fell in love with it; by just the pictures online. A 1954 moderate sized ranch with a half-acre lot, and a basement to set up my wine making gear. We knew it was the one even before we went to look at it.
We acquired the house in April of 2017. We knew by the walk through, that the yard was a complete mess and we had a lot to undertake. There were small trees everywhere. The back corner of the lot was used as a dumping ground for all kinds of crap - rocks, concrete, discarded mulch, wires, old toys, garden hoses...the list goes on. The fence surrounding the property was a combination of termite rotted wood, and 4’ original wire fencing with a plethora of mounting structures. We began work. Reshaping, de-rooting, and cleaning.
Our first mission was to establish a compost bin. We utilized as much free material as possible and created several open pit bins by using pallets and fence stakes. Over the summer/fall we continued to improve that area by increasing the size of it and laid down some w**d stop and mulch to dress the area up. Next we began tearing out the wood part of the fence and taking down trees that were growing along the fence line. Work was progressing smoothly. Every day after work, we’d don on some grubby clothes and get in the yard. Every weekend was spent working on the yard.
One day, not long after we had moved into the house, a massive, down-pouring thunderstorm came through; it revealed to us that we had some serious foundation leaks, grading issues, and problem spots with the current guttering, hidden behind poorly put up wallboard in the basement and a rotted deck. All work on the conversion came to an abrupt halt. Something had to be done about the foundation. It was a nightmare; long hours and most of the summer and fall of 2017 was spent digging a trench...8’ down, 4’ wide, and about 30’ in length; with shovels, a homemade built dirt sifter (made from the wood ripped out of the basement) and our bare hands and poor muscles.
It wouldn’t have been too horrible except the front “flower area” was filled with a layer of black mulch, on top of a layer of red mulch, plastic lining, lava rock, and finally river stone. It varied anywhere from 8” to 12” before dirt was hit. These rocks were compacted; driving a shovel into this mess felt like it took an eternity to get anywhere. A decision was made to NOT put all of that back in. This is where our homemade dirt sifter came in super handy. The layers of mulch were put in our composting bins, the plastic lining (serving as w**d stop) was removed and discarded. The rest of the rocky soil was ran over the sifter and set aside. We decided we could reuse it elsewhere.
Once the trench was dug, we thoroughly cleaned our dirty walls, and then used Hydraulic Cement to cover all of the cracks and holes from the outside. After that dried we applied a few coats heavy duty concrete sealant. You know...it didn’t take very long to fill that trench. I compacted the soil as I back filled. We have not had one leak in the basement since.
We managed to lay out tarps to allow for the ground to work for us, so our future garden beds would be easier to prepare. We found out we had a really awesome amount of Mulberries in our yard. We found a Cherry Tree! We also discovered, that along the fence line between us and our neighbor to the north, that we share a bunch of Elderberry plants. We bought a shed to store our newly acquired tools for the garden. I went through two shovels, one being brand new with all the digging. We managed to get one Hügelkultur dug and filled in, sifting all the dirt that came out of it. Our dirt sifter came in very handy in 2017.
Our last task of the fall was to finish the last back corner of the yard, getting it cleaned out. There is a big ‘ole tree back there, and over the summer we had uncovered an old trellis. Once the trellis was uncovered, we realized there were two very large vines feeding from one end of the trellis to the other end, weighing it down heavily. From there, they went upward! Upward into the top of the tree near it, out to the very ends of those tip top branches! We had been taking a break, sitting in our portable lawn chairs, and Heather looked up at the top of that tree, and nudged me, pointing upward. She asked if I saw it. Perplexed expression on my face, she said, “We have grapes. Lots of them.” I think we both sighed, speechless for a brief moment. This had to be tended to before we could end the season. It was then decided that we would cultivate the grape vines and relocate them to more suitable places. We’ve located 13 more grape vines since...all along the fence. We have thinned out 8 of them so far and selected the best vines to air layer propagate and produce individual plants of their own protected in tomato cages (26 plants so far). Once more work on the fence line is complete we will tackle the remaining 5.
Over the winter we saved money and did what we could to the inside, just waiting for our sunny and warm days outside again. It was very apparent that there would be no planting for the 2018 season. Too much work to do and all of the time spent dealing with the basement leaks had left us behind schedule. On our Midwest winter days that we were allowed outside, I managed to get the compost turned several times, we went looking for elderberries to make babies from, we made plans for what we wanted to do, also talking hopes and dreams for what this would become. We did quite a bit of research about farming, growing, and other’s approaches. We also switched to living a Keto WOE (way of eating) in January, which also played into our newest visions for our farm.
Come Spring and we resumed work on the fence on our non-rainy days. Anyone that lives in the Midwest knows that the Spring and Fall are extremely hard to work around sometimes, there is no consistency in the weather.
The saying around here goes, “If you don’t like the weather; just wait five minutes!”.
Our task was to begin working on the trees growing IN the fence wire. With some, the fence went through the center of the tree itself! During this time we began evaluation of how to best accomplish our goals. We knew that the ultimate goal would be to open up a winery in 5 to 8 years. That was and still is our ultimate 5 year plan. We decided that we could offer organic fruits and vegetables to sell at Farmers Markets and save that money to start a small winery.
Deciding we needed to really focus on our plan in early spring of 2018, we began more research, and it was realized that the areas we had originally mapped out for garden space definitely were not going to be enough to supply a Farmer’s Market. We got out the tape measure and walked the yard, notebook and pencil in hand, discovering where we could expand to maximize our planting areas as well leave enough room for a production area, a greenhouse, potentially more compost area, and expansion to the elderberries we had already planted.
We finalized the plan and produce list (to be revealed soon). Heather has great plans to include most of the front yard by planting production crops mixed with landscaping flowers and such, to keep curb appeal and to increase the beauty, while still maintaining adequate levels of supply. After performing a sun study recently, we realized the need to get a lot more sun into our yard. The property has 7 trees that will be removed in the late summer/early fall to provide more sunlight to the growing areas.
Here is our humble beginning story. We are personally inviting you to continue this saga with us, watching us, reading along with us during our updates, or even helping us, as we complete the next series of steps. In the future, meeting you face to face at a Farmer’s Market would give us a great feeling of accomplishment.
