Urban Homesteader Happenings, week 5!

Welcome to week 5 of the Urban Homesteader blog party!
You are welcomed to link up your blog posts with the tool below.

This weekly blog party started in response to the effort by a family in California to trademark the term Urban Homestead, a term that is used by many creative and hard working urban and suburban folks who bring new life to old fashioned skills such as animal husbandry, micro-farming and food preservation. The urban homesteaders who link up each week are just a tiny sample of the many families who cutting sod and laying seed around the country.

This week has brought new events to tell you about. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has teamed up with a law firm to assist the authors of an Urban Homesteading book who have been threatened by the family who filed the trademark. A petition to cancel the trademark has been submitted. There is also a public petition that can be signed on Change.org's website and I added a link for the petition at the very bottom of this blog.

More importantly, spring is here, the soil has warmed and the last frost date has passed. Which means: seed planting time! I was deliriously happy this weekend covered in dirt and forming new callouses on my hands as I wheelbarrowed wood chips around the garden paths.

work party: laying wood chips

I planted shelling peas and snap peas, after soaking the seeds at home first. I decided to plant them in one long row along the south border of my 10 foot by 30 foot garden plot. I will plant my tomatoes and zucchini down that same side next month. By the time the tomatoes and zucchini are big enough to crowd the row, the peas will be finished and can be pulled out.

rescuing herbs and planting seeds

I also found numerous plugs of herbs - thyme, oregano, mint and parsley - that had been massacred by a roto-tiller the week before. I transplanted them and they have taken well in their new location.

Now it is time to see what you have been up to! I welcome you to link up your blog posts in the comment section below. If you are interested in reading more blogs about a homegrown life, you can check out the weekly blog hop at Sustainable Eats or see the Take Back Urban Home-Steading(s) page.