A long time ago, in a boro far, far away...

My journey to becoming a gardener began when I was child and lived in Lititz, PA. Lititz Boro is located in Lancaster County which is really the center of the vegetable universe. Shortly thereafter, I became what my husband calls a vegetable priss. I'm also a coffee priss, but that's another blog. When I moved from Lititz Boro to Murfreesboro, TN, I was distressed to discover that there was no equivalent to Stauffer's of Kissel Hill (the premiere vegetable market near my home) and it took me over a decade (for reasons I still don't understand--it's less than a mile from my house) to find the Farmers' Market in Murfreesboro. In the meantime, I frequently lamented the dearth of produce in my new boro.

What started me on a serious search for better vegetables started with becoming a vegetarian for health reasons in 2001. Many of the blogs about vegetarian and vegan cooking made reference to eating locally and led me to exploring the Slow Food Movement. Then last spring I discovered Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver's lovely and poetic account of her return to her family farm and her family's attempt to spend an entire year eating only the foods they could grow themselves or secure locally. Inspired, I went in search of a CSA farm (Community Supported Agriculture) to buy my vegetables for the summer of 2008. There were many more of these available at this point than there had been when I first moved to the Boro in the mid-90s. I also began to frequent the Farmers' Market at least once a week. The vegetables I got through my CSA and through the market were wonderful and satisfied the vegetable priss in me, but I also began to itch to be part of the process.

So I bought John Jeavons' How to Grow More Vegetables and began to think seriously about my own garden. I don't mean to mislead. I am not a garden neophyte. For one thing, my father grew up on a farm. My mother spent a good bit of her early life on farm (we're from Pennsylvania, for crying out loud). And when I was growing up, my mother and grandmother never met a vegetable they didn't think could be frozen, canned, or pickled. I've spent more hours than I care to recall shelling peas and husking corn--rousted out of bed at an ungodly early hour to perform the manual labor in this operation. Over the years, my father kept a garden and waged war on groundhogs. Over the years, too, I've kept my own small garden--a couple of tomato plants, a cucumber plant, and some herbs, but most of it went to birds and bugs, the compost pile, and an occasional opossum.

Now I want to take on the project of gardening with more purpose and focus. I don't have visions of homesteading (I live in the Boro) and I don't even think I can grow all the vegetables we would eat--so I've signed up for a CSA again this year. But I think I can begin to participate in the process of growing food. It seems like the right thing for a vegetable priss to do. And it seems important to me to participate in the process of growing food. I feel like it's in my blood and it makes sense, too, given the way I eat. Last, and this one is the hardest to put in to words...it's also important to live in ways that are sustainable and the right kind of gardening can fit with that philosophy.

Ok, so that's why I'm gardening, but why blog this garden? Well, I'm having trouble finding other people in Murfreesboro or middle Tennessee who are using the Grow Biointensive method. So I thought it might be helpful to document the process in case someone else wanted to give it a try. I'm hoping some readers will find me and offer me their advice and good counsel.

Also, I thought it would be a nice way for my parents to see my garden. Hi Mom & Dad.