A Tiny Urban Farm in Downtown Atlanta

I’ve put in a couple days a week at the Wolfscratch/Blackwell farms since beginning March 5th. It’s been a lot of fun and a lot of hard work, not that I mind.  Thus far I’ve helped build deer fencing, learned to move the electric moveable fences for the goats, mucked the goats’ stall, turned the field with a shovel, and planted fruits and vegetables, among other things. Everything I’m learning on the farm I apply to my own tiny urban homestead—when we fertilize the vegetables there, I fertilize here.  After pruning blueberry bushes there, I came home and applied the same techniques to my blueberries.

Goats at Wolfscratch Farm

Last week we dug up an overgrown strawberry patch at Blackwell Farm, and I was lucky to come home with several plants.  Mr. Man and I amended the soil and carefully mounded the dirt around our new transplants.  Hopefully, come June we will see results in the shape of sweet, red strawberries.  We grow mostly in our backyard, where unfortunately there is no one location that gets a whole day of full sun, but we plant anyway.  While we don’t get the yield we would were we lucky enough to have full sun, we do get a decent crop. The trick has been in learning what grows best in the area we have.  This year we’ve planted lettuces (always a safe bet), lots of herbs, a variety of peppers, and eggplant.  The onions, planted last fall, are doing well. And the border of lavendar has managed to not only survive in our clay soil, but is budding and soon we should be rewarded with beautiful purple flowers.

Expanded beds (additional 32 sq. ft.)

We have decided to dedicate more space in the front yard, which gets full sun between 10am and 5pm., to vegetables.  Originally thinking this would be unsightly, we will work to keep and incorporate our existing perennials and roses among the vegetables—creating a true cottage garden.  Foundation work and planning has to be done this year—removing some foundation shrubs and moving a few roses.  This means we’ll probably only put tomatoes out front for now, but next year we are hoping to include carrots, beets and whatever else we can squeese in. We’ll have to be patient for now.  Of course, this will be helped by the harvest I’ll be bringing home from Wolfscratch/Blackwell Farms.


Shrubs to be removed



The pride of the spring garden

I’m on the lookout for three hens to add to our little flock, which will bring us up to six (having lost Buffy during the winter). More on that later.

My Sunday on Wolfscratch Farm

Want to learn about farming and help out small farmers at the same time? I’ve got two words for you Crop Mob. Crop Mob pairs farms with volunteers to help farmers get projects done. You may spend a few hours doing chores, or planting vegetables or whatever else might need to be done, kind of like a barn raisings of the past. I didn’t learn about Crop Mob until the end of the season last year and have been watching for notification of Crop Mobs this spring. That’s where I heard about the Salacoa CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and Wolfscratch Farm and their need for CSA Share Workers!

What a great idea! Helping out on the farm 8 hours a week in exchange for a share in the CSA? Sign me up! Which is exactly what I did. After a few conversations and emails with Jamie Rosenthal, owner of Wolfscratch Farm, I got up early on Sunday morning and headed to Jasper, Georgia for orientation. Five of us, mostly from Atlanta, showed up to help Jamie and business partner Michael Blackwell work toward their vision of turning this former horse farm into a thriving farm and CSA. It was cold and wet after an all-day rain on Saturday, but that didn’t lessen our enthusiasm. After introductions, we got started putting up deer fencing and clearing brush. There’s a lot to be done, weeding, planting, and later in the season harvesting. Jamie prepared us a delicious lunch of vegetable beef soup and Michael's homemade cornbread.

After lunch we were given a farm tour and explanation of chores: feeding the goats and chickens, cleaning water founts, mucking stalls, setting up electrical fencing, taking the goats out to pasture, etc. Later in the season we’ll be able to milk the goats, which will be a new experience for me; one I’m totally looking forward to. Then we made a quick trip over to Blackwell Farm to see Michael’s bees. I’ve wanted a bee hive for a while, but have been anxious about having one in my small backyard. Hmmmm.

I’m excited to be part of this and learn more about farming. Maybe one day soon I’ll have a small family farm of my own. Until then, I’m happy lending a hand to others.

By the way, you can find Crop Mob on Facebook.