My urban homestead Producing food on a city lot

It is my belief that, no matter how efficiently you want to manage your small space and make every square inch produce something, some of your land should be given over to something for each season that is so heart-stoppingly beautiful that you catch your breath when you see it. You can think of it as endorphin-farming if you like, and it’s an important part of what makes your gardening sustainable. The moments of joy that you experience can only do you good. For me, poppies will always be the ultimate late spring heart-stoppers, with their blend of drop-dead showiness and tissue-paper fragility. So I use a small swathe of my land for a wildflower circle where poppies are harmonized with other lovelies such as Siberian wallflower and blue flax. Don’t be afraid to throw bright colors together, because in this season it looks right. You need to decide by late winter where the wildflowers are going to go, and do some soil prep. They don’t need a lot of pampering, but to be lush and beautiful they do need some care and good soil. Plant very early, by March at the latest, water regularly, and keep the weeds out. Then, some morning in May, you will wander through your flowery meadow so filled with pleasure that you can hardly believe it, and at tedious meetings or in the dentist’s chair the image will still be there. Surely that’s worth a little sweat and compost.