May Update

Homestead Projects and A Shortcut to Mushrooms (nod to Tolkien, IYKYK)

Blueberries

Since Phillip is now off for the summer from his university teaching job, the cold rains have moved on, and the soil is warm enough to be worked, he’s been putting in full days getting the gardens ready. The main areas of labor so far have been our row of blueberry bushes and the fenced backyard garden. The blueberries were planted in May 2021, with the blessing of our wonderful neighbors with whose lawn we share a property line. So we have a row of about 20 blueberry bushes that line our driveway. The berries that grow in the unfenced area facing the street are intended to be a free you-pick zone for the neighborhood. So far, however, they haven’t been very productive, hence the improvement project.

L: May 2021 and R: May 2023

The main problem was their root system. Blueberry plants prefer well-drained soil that is acidic and sandy. We did plant them in mounds that included sand, but watering them led to soil being washed downhill until the roots were repeatedly exposed. So now, with frames around the plants, made from discarded wood (obtained from family members doing their own home improvement project), the soil should be less prone to erosion.

One person’s cast-offs are another’s treasure. Repurposed wood framing the blueberry plants. And a trellis bought cheap at auction.

Prepping the Main Garden

Our main food garden is a fenced section of the backyard. It used to be lush (chemically maintained) green lawn, but over the course of 7 years we’ve transformed it to fertile (chemical-free) soil that produces many pounds/ bushels/ what-have-you of vegetables. You can read more about our journey from lawn to suburban farm here in a guest post I wrote for

Brunette Gardens

. It’s taken an awful lot of sweat, patience, learning, compost, manure, and added topsoil to make the compacted clay-heavy dirt that was under the lawn into healthy soil for crop growth. But so worth it!

Main garden, May 2023. We’re leaving just enough grass to set up badminton. But we ditched the chemical lawn maintenance.

I am not a tidy gardener. Or housekeeper. Or employee. I am a disorganized, distractible person with gardening habits to match the rest of my life. My trouble with a messy garden is not the aesthetics, as I think a sea of tangled green plants dappled in sunlight is perfectly beautiful, but rather the difficulty it presents for maintenance and harvest of the food produced. Last year, as an example, we had far too many zucchini that grew larger than we like (their taste & texture worsen beyond a certain size), because we didn’t see them until they were gigantic enough to be visible in the mess.

A typical August jungle garden at The Suburb Farm

So this year, Phillip came up with a new scheme for an organized garden. The main foundation of his plan is raised beds of tabled soil held in place by logs. The logs in the shadiest area of the garden are plugged with mushroom spawn. You can check out our last post for more about that. This week, he and our son installed chicken wire along the ground at the back fence, to slow the rabbit superhighway that led to the loss of all our pea and bean plants last year. Speaking of which, peas, beans, and beets are all I’ve planted in-ground so far this season; just along the inside of the wooden fence since the rest of the garden is under renovation. And we had to do a second planting after bunnies ate the greens off all the sprouts.

Trenching the garden: a work in progress

Mushroom Log Update

A mere 2 weeks and 6 days after moving the mushroom logs to their new place, we were rewarded with shiitake mushrooms! They were delicious. That’s the update.

Shiitake mushrooms harvested from our logs

A Quick Survey

This is the 2nd post in a week(!) from The Suburb Farm. An experiment of sorts. I’m hoping to post weekly in future, rather than the current once or twice every month or three. So I’d like to know our readers’ preferences for a posting day. The survey will be active for 1 week.

Thank you for reading, no matter when! I hope your May garden plans are fruitful.

—Erin, in Michigan

Baby pea shoot, so far uneaten by bunnies