What I’m Growing on Shmitta

Shmitta can be hard. There are many things that I would like to do in my garden right now. Such as:

• Prune back the Panama Berry tree, which I adore, but it growing so fast that by the end of the year it will be shading most of the other trees and plants in that part of the garden
• Remove the mealy bugs from my blood orange tree
• Pull up the weeds from my vegie beds. They may well have a thousand babies each, by the time shmitta ends. How I wish I could just feed them to the chickens!
• Plant! There is a growing list of plants that I am itching to put in. At the top of my list: Peruvian pear and galangal.
• Eat the garlic, potatoes and nettle which have sprung up in my growing beds. But instead I must yank them out and destroy them, as they are sefichin.

But still there’s lots of good stuff brewing on Bloomah’s City Farm

It’s kind of hard to explain the satisfaction I get when I partner with the forces of Creation to grow something so delicious, nourishing and beneficial! So valuable! So one-of-a-kind!

Really it feels kind of like gardening 🙂

There are so many more DIY projects I want to try. The shift of focus from gardening is inspiring me to try lots of new things on my kitchen counter.

Projects I hope to try soon:

• propolis tincture (our hive gives us plenty of propolis but I’ve never made use of it before)
• all kinds of home-brewed vinegars
• herbal infused oils (using our hand-harvested olive oil)
• new adventures in natural soap making – this time with wood ash instead of chemical caustic soda

One of the main things I’m growing this year is my knowledge and skills. I joined a monthly courses on ancient skills, where we are learning about foraging, carving, natural clays, tracking and more.

It is wonderful to be outdoors and learning in this beautiful world.