I set myself a goal this year to complete two related projects. The first is building a “kitchen garden” in a fenced area of the yard used by previous owners as a dog run, but never used by us for anything. The second is creating a multi-paddocked chicken run in the space where our primary garden used to be.
Although these projects are part of a vision for a much larger garden transformation, I have limited myself to only working on these two. Financially and mental energy-wise, I can’t manage any more than that at a time. After a certain load, my brain simply refuses to turn ideas into action and I end up with pages and pages of plans, but the same old weedy dirt yard as before.
The first project, the “kitchen garden” (or potager if you prefer the French) is intended to make growing, harvesting, and cooking food easier by bringing it all much closer to the house. In permaculture they call this immediately accessible and frequently visited part of the yard “zone one.” When I put in my first garden beds, I made the mistake of situating my “zone one” garden where I would need to walk through the house and around the barn and fenced goat yard just to grab a carrot to cook for dinner. I also scattered many more small garden beds throughout the property, meaning that it may actually take more than one long walk to gather all the vegetables and herbs that I need for a meal. With the new kitchen garden, I hope to tame my urge to fill every growing space available with food, and instead concentrate my vegetable and herb production to one, easy-to-access area, letting the other beds become host to things like native perennial flowers that simply need less attention.
The second project, which I’ve been calling “the chicken area expansion” is a kindness to our small flock. Last year as egg prices soared, more friends began to turn to me as their egg supplier. With this increase in demand, we added four birds to our existing seven and crowded their enclosure. Further to this crowding issue, our birds love to forage. It is good for their mental stimulation and their health as the bugs, seeds, and other bits they scratch out of the ground add diversity to their diets. Knowing this, we like to let them free range on the property during fall and winter when the weather is nice enough. Chickens are a destructive force, though. Once the gardens get going, we can’t have them tearing up every bed of baby plants in sight. Thus, a compromise: an enclosed, chicken-friendly garden for their summer foraging
When I initially set this two-project goal for myself, I didn’t realize just how much I would need the work that it necessitates. Multiple members of my family on my husband’s side have been facing serious health problems in the last few years, and rather than providing relief, 2023 has only brought a new set of challenges. It has been at times difficult, frightening, and saddening to watch these struggles and be able to offer so little in the way of help, comfort, or solutions. In response to all this turmoil, my husband vents his emotions with rugby, weightlifting, yelling while he strums a guitar, and shooting things in video games. I build gardens.
Pulling weeds, pounding in fence posts, digging holes, sawing down tree limbs, moving heavy things (rocks, cinder bricks, piles of dirt, bags of soil, railroad ties, tree limbs, etc.)—these are my catharsis. Being outside in the sun and doing work that accomplishes something is the best mental wellness strategy I’ve found for myself. If I am angry at the world or heartbroken or wondering why or how I am supposed to keep fighting past all the obstacles life puts in my way, I can go outside and clear literal tumbleweeds from a literal path. I can do something that makes the world around me a little more ordered and easier to walk through.
Aching muscles, it turns out, are also a great way to keep oneself grounded in the present, real, right here part of the world and not wandering off through the someday, what if, out there parts one has no control over. I work on my projects. I use my body. I take things day by day—today, fence posts, tomorrow wire, the next day gates. There is always a next thing to do in a project, a result to show after the doing, and a physical, bodily reminder of the work done. This is what keeps me going.
If I run out of one project, I always have more waiting in the wings. This year, I am building a kitchen garden, a chicken area expansion, and a way to be okay with everything else.
Next year, who knows? Maybe a greenhouse.
