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Q&A: How two ambitious urban gardeners make it all work
Posted
at
12:01 am
by Jessi Loerch
Last year, Shannon and Jason Mullett-Bowlsby, also known as The Shibaguyz, grew 800 pounds of tomatoes on their 15 by 15 patio. Yes, 800 pounds. The patio was appropriately dubbed the jungle. This year the pair is keeping even busier in the Seattle area with a variety of urban gardening projects. They are working on six plots, ranging in size from 10 feet by 10 feet to a quarter of an acre. The land, all nearby their West Seattle home, will be enough to keep them in veggies for the entire year. Sound interesting? Here’s some more about the Shibaguyz and their adventures.
Tell us a little bit about yourselves.
We are two regular guys living in West Seattle with our two Shiba Inu, Apollo and Atlas, and Hera the cat. We have been living the locavore lifestyle for three summers now and are lovin' the life we've made for ourselves. We are active in our community mainly through our gardening work and through teaching classes and mentoring folks on edible gardening.
How did you first get interested in gardening?
We've both been gardeners and farmers since we were kids. I (Shannon) grew up in Ohio and Jason grew up in Wyoming. If we ever wanted to spend time with our family, a lot of that was spent in the garden.
More recently I was driving home late from work one night and heard an interview on KUOW with Barbara Kingsolver. Neither one of us had read her book, "Animal Vegetable Miracle" yet but this was definitely the turning point in our eating and gardening habits. Up until that point, we were growing mainly ornamentals and kitchen herbs. Now we're edible gardening geeks.
Tell us about your urban gardening project. How did it get started? How many plots and how much land are you managing?
We have taken on six plots that we are either working on exclusively or with other folks in a community gardening situation. Our plots are 10 by 10, 15 by 20, 20 by 10, 25 by 15, 10 by 15 and the community garden is a quarter of an acre.
The Urban Farming Project started because we wanted to have a way of producing our own food without depending on any outside sources other than what we can grow. We simply put out a call for folks that had spare space we could garden in or who were willing to share a gardening space with us and divide up the harvests. The response was overwhelming to say the least. We now have enough space to produce all of our own fruits and vegetables this year with no assistance from stores or other farms. It's just like farming when I was a kid, just a lot more scattered out.
The ultimate goal with the Urban Farming Project is to develop a mentoring system where folks who need help with or just want to know more about growing their own food can easy access the resources they need. We are looking at partnering with different organizations here in the Seattle area to provide support and knowledge to folks who have the desire to gain their food independence. Even if it is just some veggies in a pot on their balcony, that is still a HUGE step in the right direction.
We are looking to empower people through all of the steps of producing their own food. Our motto is "Sow, Grow, Harvest, Plate, Pantry." That kind of sums it all up nicely.
How much time do you spend gardening? How do you keep it all organized?
Every spare moment! Keeping it all organized… um… I have this GREAT notebook with everything written down in it. That, and Jason has a GREAT memory!
Any other cool projects you’d like to tell us about?
We are working on some very cool projects right now, thanks for asking!
- 1. The Lazy Locavores This is our new business we are starting. Woohoo! We are garden coaches and mentors who can do everything from consultations to doing the gardening work for you and providing you with your own private food service, right in your own back yard. We also teach folks how to prepare some of those local, seasonal foods that might be a bit of a mystery at first and, when the time is right, we teach them how to preserve their harvest. Jason even teaches classes on bread making with his Miracle Bread recipe. The Lazy Locavores is how we started the Urban Farming Project.
- 2. We are currently on the planning committee for the West Seattle Edible Garden Fair which takes place on May 23rd, 2009 from 9:30am - 4:00pm. It is a free event is aimed at teaching folks to grow their own groceries.
- 3. As always, we have our blog Here we go! Life with the Shibaguyz… where we chronicle our progress from backyard gardeners to urban farmers and our trek to become more sustainable and self sufficient.
What is your favorite thing to grow? What do you think is easy to grow in our climate?
It is always amazing to me how easy growing food is. It seems like all you have to do is throw some seeds, bulbs or tubers in the ground and TAADAA you have food! I know it's more than that… it just SEEMS that easy some days.
The best advice we can give folks is don't skimp on your soil and be sure to plant the right plant in the right place. If you follow those guidelines, you can usually grow just about anything anywhere.
Our favorite thing though… we seem to enjoy growing just about everything. I'd say our favorite thing is whatever we are working on at that particular moment. If we're planting okra, that's our favorite, if we're picking broccoli, that's our favorite.
If you have the right soil and the right plant in the right place, you can grow just about anything in our climate. However, as a general rule, it is easiest to stick to short-season crops that either mature quickly or do well in cooler temps.
What do you love enough to grow even though it is fussy?
We're having a kick right now with extending our growing season. We are growing some more heat loving plants like peppers, corn and okra this year. We have converted our patio room into a hot room and started everything under lights on shelves. It's really quite the set up. This is giving our plants about another 45 to 60 days of maturity time; something they wouldn't normally have here in the Pacific Northwest.
Is there anything you’ve just decided isn’t worth the effort?
Until we converted our hot room, we had all but given up on peppers. Now there are three flats of them down there sprouting! We'll try anything for a few years.
I see that you harvested 800 pounds of tomatoes from your patio last year. First how big is your patio? And second, what did you do with 800 pounds of tomatoes?
YUP! 800 pounds. We live in a townhouse so our patio is about 15 by 15 with most of that being cement. We do a lot of pots and plant our climbers in-ground around the fence.
800 pounds of tomatoes makes a lot of great pasta sauces, chili, tomato paste, dried tomatoes, tomato powder… basically, we either ate, canned or dried all of them. We've been eating them since last fall.
Any tips for someone who would like to try some urban gardening of their own?
The first thing we would tell anyone to do is pick up a copy of the Seattle Tilth guide book. It is called "The Maritime Northwest Gardening Guide." That one book has been our constant companion in our growing efforts here in the Pacific Northwest. It is an excellent resource guide. (Note: You can buy the book from Seattle Tilth via mail order.)
Next, we always tell folks to start small. Our neighbors nicknamed our backyard garden "The Jungle" right after we started. We started out with a couple of plants and just got totally addicted. Simply start small with some peas and lettuce or herbs and go up from there. As you become more confident with your gardening skills, add other crops like tomatoes and even potatoes. You'll be surprised how much fun you can have and how often you will be eating your own homegrown produce.
Finally, we always tell people not to rush out and purchase the most expensive products on the market. If you are starting small, a couple of repurposed nursery pots or a bucket will usually do the trick. You don't need expensive starts and tons of even more expensive equipment. Keep it small and simple and you'll be happy.
If you do get hung up on some aspect of growing food, your local Master Gardener office or booth can really help out a lot.
Anything else you’d like to mention?
Gardening should be fun! If you aren't having fun, then what's the point? People always ask us how we've been so successful with our gardening. We tell them it's a good mix of prosecco and "Wait, Wait, Don't tell me." Laughing and having fun while you are working in your garden or just having an escape from the everyday rat race is what it's all about. Enjoy yourself. Grow what you like.
If you ever have any questions, feel free to drop by our blog and say “hey.” We'll help you out anyway we can!
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