Back on the femtofarm

Coining terms is hard. I was tilling this afternoon (I now laugh at those who told me to have a machine do this-- digging with my own muscle power is wonderful), when the term "microfarm" beamed through my head. I was for a moment, a little proud of myself, thinking of a cute little term like this, and then began to immediately consider what this was.

In the mental definition derived this afternoon, a microfarm is in many respects similar to a garden-- generally small in area (much less than one acre), which can be maintained by a single microfarmer with little trouble. The overarching philosophy behind this was to separate that which myself and many others are doing from gardening. Firstly, I will say that I have no ill-will or disregard for this hobby, but I wonder what happens when a hobby becomes more serious? Avoiding a mental compulsion to work in a garden, a "serious gardener" (doesn't "microfarmer" sound better, though?) is growing for a greater philosophical, social, political and/or economic goals. The microfarmer is focusing on sustainability-- can s/he support him/herself on their homegrown produce? Is this microfarmer intentionally removing themselves from the greater machine of consumerism?

Perhaps this is a bit of naiveté on my part, having only started myself own this path of gardening. I do, after all, have a tendency to do this. I suppose that when many hear the term "gardening," this brings to mind the image of a retiree hobby (my grandfather, incidentally, growing amazing tomatoes), but I hope to be something more, taking on a more serious tone about this. Then again, it would be nice to expand from micro- to macro-farming-- this, of course, is a very long-term goal in the gentleman farmer project (just love the 18th-century phrasing).

Nonetheless, once I had finished the tilling, and cleaned-up, I did a quick check on Google to discover that I had been far from the first to think of a "microfarm." As it turns out, a microfarm is in essence, a small family farm, with a few livestock generally spread-out over an area of two acres or so. Not terribly suprised by this result, I did another search for "nanofarm," which I felt was a more accurate description of my activities in light of what I had just learned (my plot is about 0.003 acres). The disappointment began to become palpable. "What about pico-? That ought to be the new prefix for the next decade!" One would think that the phrase picofarm was never used before. Now frustrated, I had found open territory on the term femtofarm. Granted, I am happy that atto-, zepto-, and yocto- never became options, but at this point, it seems a bit silly, but I will take what I can get

I throw this to the readers-- am I a femtofarmer, or a gardener?