Christine H. Lee

Category: Chickens

The best time of year to visit my urban farm

April 10, 2022 /
olive and blue eggs from the backyard chickens

It’s April in Berkeley. We have a head start on most of the country when it comes to Spring. (Don’t resent us too much—our summers never get hot enough to reliably produce tomatoes or peppers, and watermelon is impossible. One time I tried to grow watermelon, and I harvested ONE. It was about 3 inches in diameter. It was not SUPPOSED to be 3 inches in diameter. It did not taste good, either). The magnolias finished blooming last month. The snow peas are finishing up production. The lettuce threatens to bolt. And the tomatoes have just gone into the ground. 

I spent this winter replenishing the soil in the garden and started two more hugelkultur beds. For months, the garden looked unpicturesque: mostly brown dirt and piles of compost. But this month, things have taken a turn and the garden has become—green and lush. This is the time of year I wish I could do tours of the urban farm. I hate it when I give tours in late Fall or Winter when everything is either overgrown or browning or worse, barren. It’s like being photographed five minutes after you’ve woken up, hair unbrushed with sleep still in your eyes. 

So for prosperity, I thought I’d give a video tour of my urban farm, as it is. 

The first clip is the patio area, which is where I keep my janky greenhouse and plant starts. This is also where the berry garden resides; when my daughter was (more) wee, she loved putting things in her mouth. She also loved picking berries. So I planted a berry garden for her. There are blueberries, raspberries, black raspberries, tayberries, blackberries, and more surrounding this patio.

The second clip focuses on the “woodland area” of the farm, just off the patio. Here is where I’ve planted begonias, yerba buena, and yerba mate, as well as elderberries. 

This is all en route to the main part of the garden, which resides on a hillside that sheds to a creek. The first part of the main part is the flower and fruit tree area. The soil here is still mostly clay, which is why there aren’t many vegetables planted here. I’m working on remediating the soil in this fruit tree area. (The soil doesn’t seem to bother the trees, which produce tons of fruit each year—the pluerry particularly).

Then we hit the main vegetable area, which is looking great these days. I just put the tomato starts in the ground. The Florida weave is up, too. (Out of all the ways to trellis tomatoes, I prefer this method most—although the downside is that I can’t hop between rows after it’s in). There’s also asparagus and other vegetables like beans and cucumbers and squash. 

I took another clip of the vegetable area from the other direction. There’s jeolla do mustard and a glimpse of the hugelkultur bed below. You can hear Brad the Rooster crowing away in this clip. 

And since Brad the Rooster is calling, we’re going straight towards him where the chicken coops reside. Here you can see Brad the Rooster with the fully grown Black Copper Maran and Black Ameraucana hens. Also, his very very abused daughter, a cross between him (Black Copper Maran) and a Black Ameraucana hen—produces olive eggs. And yes, it’s kind of gross, but she is his “favorite.” And apparently, in chicken land, this is acceptable? 

In a separate coop are the gold sex-link and Silver Lace Wyandotte pullets, otherwise known as “teenage hens.” They’re having a good old time these days outdoors and discovering dust bathing, which if humans practiced it, would be the opposite of clean. In Chicken World, however, this is how they keep clean and practice hygiene. 

From the chicken coop area, we start again in the tomato area—and you get a glimpse of glass that fell out of a window! (Yes, I swept and vacuumed that up with a wet-dry vac right after this video). We head towards the beehives. It’s a little busy with the bees these days; I split a hive to get a backup queen and keep mites under control (by giving the bees a brood break), so there are five hives total. Forgive the mess. I need to dispose of those old deep hive boxes. (I don’t use deep boxes anymore—they’re too heavy for me—a full box of brood and/or honey can weigh over 50 pounds!).

And finally, a look at the farm from the bottom of the hill by the tiny house. You can see where the beehives and hugelkultur bed are in relation to the rest of the garden. The entire farm is south facing, albeit surrounded by oak trees, which are protected by Berkeley ordinances, so there are very few “full sun” spots—it’s mostly partial side.

So there you have it. My urban farm. It’s not particularly huge. There are more impressive urban farms out there. But this is where I get solace these days. I go out into the garden first thing every day to do my “chores,” which are unlike most chores, a pleasure to execute. There’s still a lot to do, like cut back vines—which reminds me, the passionfruit vines need better trellising up there. See how the “chores” never end?

But these days, when I think of the one joy I do each day to give myself peace and joy and hope, it’s to plant. While harvesting can be fun, it’s not where I derive the most satisfaction—it’s the planting and cultivating that gratify me most. 

What do you do each day to give yourself joy and self-care?

Hobbiton Farm

February 19, 2018 /

I have a farm. (I feel like Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen: “I had a farm in Africa,” sans empire and imperialism).

I was reluctant to call what I had, a farm. I had chickens and bees and several vegetable areas–but somehow, it did not feel like enough. Likewise in the early days of writing, I couldn’t bring myself to say I was a writer. But with all identities, the pendulum shifts at a certain point; with writing, I gained confidence, I gained some achievements, and I formed a community, which helped me make the transition to calling myself a writer.

Someone once told me that identity is composed of three things:

  1. Legal identity
  2. Social identity
  3. and most important: Self identity

At some point, Hobbiton Farm became a farm not just in name but in function. Over the winter, I began ripping out ornamental plants with the intention of replacing them with edible plantings. I chopped down some nameless, non-fruiting trees and built a hugelkultur bed in their place (and using the wood therefrom). I’ll be experimenting with hugelkultur and planting vegetables in that bed at some point.

I got some frustrating news mid-winter, so what can you do when you feel helpless and exasperated? You learn to use a chainsaw and tear down a twenty-year-old trumpet vine, of course. Over the course of a few days, that vine came down. I sawed and hacked away at it. I was covered in tree detritus everyday. I chopped that thing down bit by bit, and then I dragged the pieces away one by one, too.

And I added the vines and branches and leaves to the–yes, the hugelkultur bed.

By week’s end, the wall was rid of vine. The trellis was rid of vine. It was ready for a peach tree. And it was ready for grapes.

My daughter was dismayed when she saw I’d cut down the trumpet vine. But has been consoled by the peach tree and grapes. (And yes, it was exciting getting bare root fruit trees delivered in the mail–such is my life that this is what excites me).

In the past year, I made new farming connections. From them, I learned about no-till practices. And also Korean Natural Farming practices. We geeked out on farming information. On gardening. On plants. On horticulture. I started making lactic acid bacteria. I’ll tell you more about that in subsequent posts. Along with bees–the bees the bees the bees!

But mostly, I’ve been out in the garden every single day. This winter, I became a farmer.

I’ve been obsessed with amending the soil. Last year, I could tell the soil needed help–plants would top out at a certain point in certain places in the garden. And that I’d have to lay down new foundation.

I learned about sheet mulching. Thank goodness the Amazon boxes have finally come in handy–the cardboard boxes are the first layer when you do sheet mulching (which I like to call “lasagna gardening). Which then you top with compost and leaves and what have you. This method chokes out the weeds below. It builds new soil. It is a no-till method, whereby you don’t disturb the earth (and micorizzhae and earthworms and what have you) below. It replicates what happens in nature: earth, then the leaves that follow upon it.

It’s been therapeutic for me to hang out with my bees and chickens and experiment with soil amendment and learning about new gardening practices. Maybe it’s the Vitamin D from sunlight. Maybe it’s touching the earth. Maybe it’s the adrenalin from sweating. Maybe it’s witnessing the matriarchy of the bees (and the matriarchy of the chickens). But it makes me feel better. It makes me feel comfortable in my own skin. I just want to share it with you, in hopes that it enlightens and maybe makes you feel better, too. Or know that the world is still somehow working, even though the world feels like it’s going sideways.

So I’ve expanded. My goal is to turn the entire yard into an edible landscape. Whatever is on it, I think, must serve a purpose. I’m making space.

I feel helpless a lot–and it’s not a feeling I like to carry around with me. Farming makes me feel less helpless. There’s always something to do. The farm is self-sustaining. It is about having purpose. In that sense, I’ve always been a farmer.

I’ve believed in productivity my entire life. It happens when you’re a child of immigrants. I was raised to be aware of where I put my energy, and what the harvest might look like. This is the place.

As a woman, I wasn’t raised to hold tools. As a woman, many of the tools sold at the store are too big for my hands. But this winter, I learned to use a chainsaw. I used big-ass drills to help build a trellis. I bought cattle fencing and fence posts, so I can build a squash arch. It feels good. A tool belt might be next. Do they come in women’s sizes, I wonder?

(picture of the garden, Summer 2017)

Chickens and Bees

May 9, 2017 /

I’ve been meaning to write about my burgeoning urban farm (I’d say homestead, but I’m just not there yet–though it’s my ultimate goal to have one). The other night, I picked up a nuc of bees, and I figure it’s now time to share a little with you.

I’ve wanted bees since I was 8 years old and did my animal research report on bees. What little I learned then, nurtured a growing love and interest for bees. Where my friends had bee fear, I had none. I loved their diligence and found their worker hierarchy endlessly interesting. My uncle on my mom’s side was a chicken farmer and chicken veterinarian. I remember seeing his farm of chickens and being intimidated by the raw number of cheeping chicks and squawking hens. But I was struck and interested, once again–they had entered my psyche and my world and were no longer a foreign thing but a farm animal to be grown and nurtured.

Then I visited my friend Novella Carpenter’s urban farm about ten years ago–and that made me want to undertake an urban farm and get some chickens.

My husband-at-the-time was firmly opposed. He wanted a strictly ornamental, well-manicured garden. And he wasn’t too hot about livestock, let alone the two tomato plants I did have that ended up attracting rats, to his great dismay. So those plans were on hold indefinitely. Until they were not. Continue reading

Chickens 2015

February 16, 2015 /

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The chickens have begun laying eggs.

One of the highlights of my day is to go out to the coop and discover freshly laid eggs. Sometimes the egg is warm, the heat yet to dissipate. Sometimes I find several eggs nestled in the pine shavings.

I’ve learned many interesting facts about eggs, because Christine: I love obtuse facts. One of the things I did after recovering from my stroke was to study the brain and brain function and learn the biology and science behind what had happened.

Chickens have a 25 hour cycle. They lay an egg every 25 hours. It’s like their period, and they lay an egg whether a rooster is present or not.

Also, the eggs are egg shaped (elliptical but “pointy” on one end) for a reason: as the egg is expelled through the chicken’s body, the egg is shaped by the muscles pushing it along. Yes, the chicken lays the egg flat/round side out, first. The pointy part is expelled last.

And there you have it.

The eggs are delicious.

Also, my toddler refuses to eat eggs. Because she has figured out they are from the chickens. I fear I am raising a vegan.

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email: christine DOT zilka AT gmail DOT com
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