Once Upon a Moonlight Farm

there was a metal-working innovator who wanted to be more self-reliant,

and a vegetarian teacher who wanted to walk barefoot on the earth.

So, like others before them, they cultivated the soil,

sowed a few seeds, and tended their rows most diligently until the harvest.

Over time, they added a coop, a few black and white hens,

and a rooster named Sherlock Holmes.

The innovator up-cycled an old school bus into a rabbit-hutch on wheels.

As years passed, the root vegetables surpassed all expectations.

Giant globe onions, flavorful heads of garlic, and enormous knobby rutabaga were savored, and shared, and stored in the cellar.

While the innovator tended to the soil as responsively as he did to the plants, the teacher kept notes and wrote their methods into a little gardening book.

At first, this book was for their own use, so they could work more efficiently through each new growing season, and not “reinvent the wheel” each year.

The Moonlight Farmers wanted to share the joy and satisfaction of growing food at home, so the little collection of lists and notes became a book that other gardeners could carry into their own garden, to record their ideas, to celebrate their successes, and to chronicle their learning process.

To this day, the Moonlight Farmers continue their quest to get more from their garden each year.

This was part one of my recent talk at a local gardening center. Their event was called "Every Garden Has a Story" so I began with this simple version of how our garden got started, and what led me to write my book. Most of these photos were taken by my daughter and are featured in my book.  I will post part two of my talk , Get More from your Garden, soon.

Where ever you are, whatever the weather, I wish you time in nature.