Long post ahead...

We took pictures last weekend too, but never posted, so this is going to be a DOUBLE update!

We'd like to begin with a moment of silence....

Sadly, last week we lost one of our pots to "nature" and by that we mean, "the mean streets of edgewater," and by that we mean, "some JERK-FACE took it." It was small, and turquoise, and had the sprouting plant in it that joanna saved! Here are some of jona's thoughts of where the pot might be and who is responsible:

1. someone saw that the little sprout needed lots of love, and so took it home with them to care for it...before bringing it back. Like...babysitting.
2. someone mistakenly broke the pot while walking innocently down the street, and so took it home in order to glue it back together for joanna.
3. someone took the pot, for their grandma, or the coming of father's day, and will never return it. 
4. someone stole it.

This reality check was a reminder of how a front yard garden is definitely a social experiment of sorts. It has been fun to talk to passersby, neighbors, friends, and eavesdropping on people who walk their dogs and stop to look. 

Onward...

Front yard. We added a lot!

Notice the new front bed. Erica did most of the bed prep, which involved shredding the huge tree roots that were in the way. She uncovered a GROSS yellow thing, like a huge fat yellow maggot thing living in the roots. It was taken care of.
We planted the bed with a combination of mixed flowers and marigolds. This will create a beautiful border of non-edibles so we don't have to feel weird about dog piss...(though inevitable). Jo built the cute fence using sticks from the tree in the back yard that is flowering pink flowers, but is dying? The two teal sticks are leftover from the fence we built last week on the south side of the bed.
Here's the fence we built last week on the south side -

Do you like it?

We strung yarn between them to create a visual, though not very functional fence. Jo has plenty of yarn lying around, because, try as she might, she never takes to knitting. The paint is leftover from the faux fireplace mantle Jo decorated in her living room. The paint sticks are from when we painted her new/salvaged coffee table "cherries jubilee." Don't you worry. That color will pop up in the garden soon enough. We hoped the fence would keep dogs from stepping in and out of the garden, but we decided this week that it must be squirrels digging. The fence hasn't been disturbed, but the paw-like holes continue to appear. Oh well. Gotta give a little back to Nature, right?

Basil is growing its first true leaves that look adorable. We've planted aprox.  This photo is from last week, so they've grown bigger. Potted basil below. Another victim of the squirrels?

Bull's Blood beets are also coming along nicely. This photo is last week, and we thinned a lot this week. They were looking kinda leggy, meaning tall and lanky, meaning they probs weren't getting enough sun. Thinning should help. We saved all of the thinned plants to eat in salads.

Russian kale also got thinned and is looking beautiful! Jo's been getting lots of this kale in her CSA share so I think she's a little sick of it, but we planted another patch of it, which sprouted this week!

Let's play "Before and After"!

Before: July 12

Onions in front (you can see small sprouts) and small line of peas in back (none visible)

After: July 19
Back view of onions, which grew about 4 inches + peas, which not only sprouted, but developed several leaves!

Before: June 12
Bloomingdale spinach, mostly first leaves, few true leaves visible. Behind the spinach is a small bed of freshly-seeded lavender.

After: June 19
Lots of true leaves! We're banking on it since the backyard's spinach bed is not doing well. The lavender in back got dug up by squirrels, but we do see lots of sprouts. Hopefully something develops. We did seed some lavender in a pot today.

That was a fun game.

Green Zebra tomato, lookin stylish. The Blonde got a cage put around hir today, cuz she's growing tall. Zebra's jealous, so we'll have to take care of that soon.

We only added this picture because you can see a blurry version of the swiss chard, the green stuff in the foreground of the picture. A few of those plants are developing nicely and look like real chard. They were thinned today.

Joanna learned something about herself today. She does not like to kill plants and wishes she could save all of them. Thinning was difficult for her initially, but today she learned that thinning is fun!

Grass patch tribute to Jo's landlord's innocent attempt to beautify the space literally the day before we started seeding. We like it.

Rhubarb sprouted a new leaf, and lost a young leaf (visible in photo next to Rhubarb sign pointing towards grass). We found a weird bug munching Rhub, so we sprinkled some worm castings with a vague hope that'll help repel insects. Jo killed the bug, like the butch that she is. Actually, she squirmed and tried a few times and said sorry as she squished it. Yeah, like I said, butch. Erica was holding the camera so she couldn't do it. We're a little worried about Rhub, but it has another new leaf about to emerge. Plz hang in there buddy!

We seeded some more basil, bell peppers (probably won't make it), and Detroit beets next to the rhubarb. We just can't resist adding more and more to the front yard! There's also now a plank we plan to paint on the north side of the garden, just like the one on the south side.

Jo and her pots!

Bigish ones are still up front, seeded with basil and lavender. Small ones have catnip and catgrass. Those'll sit in the backyard to germinate and grow a bit before gifted to the cats indoors because they'd eat 'em up before they get a chance to grow. A non-visible, plastic green pot got seeded with parsley.

Marigolds we transplanted are about to bloom! We hope they'll protect the rhubarb a little by repelling insects.

Backyard now!

Erica thinning the spinach mustard. The blue plastic tub now contains a small number of worms from Erica's stash for Jo's new vermicompost bin! The remainder of the unfinished compost went into a big gray tub, gifted from Abby. The adorable rectangle pot contains catgrass, which grew up enough in the last week to be brought inside for the cats, who loooove it. Especially Wrenford.

Tada! We hit jackpot when we found a pile of dried leaves and compost under Jo's front porch, which the landlord said we could use. Leaves, plus lots of shredded paper and cardboard, are our carbon sources in this new compost bin. The nitrogen layer consists of rotting food from our freezers and kitchen tables. We legit have enough food scraps for this. Gross. And awesome.

We're excited about the new compost bin, but nervous because it doesn't have as much aeration as it should. We're going to drill holes in the bottom, prop it up on bricks, and place it in the yard somewhere so excess moisture and nutrients can drip out and fertilize the ground. All in all, a very exciting project! Thank you Abby!

Last week's spinach mustard. We thinned it last week and more this week. A lot has bolted, probably due to crowding and poor soil. But a fair amount is still trucking along!

Speaking of bolting...

Yes, this is spinach. It was like, "Fuck this, I'm OUT. Here's some seeds, MoFos!"

We're going to let most of the spinach go to seed, which we'll collect for next year. Bloomingdale is heirloom, but the spinach isn't very big or happy. Next year's planting will be an experiment!

Looks like the front two sections, closer to the house, are getting a lot more sun than the back two sections. Good to know for next year.

Parsley friends! Probably won't get super big due to sunlight, but it'll grow enough to get one cutting at least. We want to make parsley mango salad at least once.

I wish we had a good close-up of the lettuces. They've developed a couple of true leaves and are leaning into the sun as much as possible. They're very dainty. We'll show you next week!

Until then, love, peace, and cats -

Epic Sun-day!

We accomplished a lot today!

Remember how small the onions were when we planted them? Now they're a half a foot tall!

It's been a battle against the grass Jona's landlord seeded in the front plot. He didn't mean any harm. We've done a ton of weeding in the areas with the onions and upcoming swiss chard, basil, beets, and spinach. We're not sure exactly where Erica seeded the above, so we're waiting for things to sprout before encroaching on the space.

This evening, we painted a table bright pink. But more importantly, we purchased and planted the following from Gethsemane:

1. Blondkopfehen tomato. It will produce adorably round, small, yellow fruits. Heirloom variety, so we're going to save seed.

Blond = in terracotta pot, center

2. Green Zebra tomato. It will produce smallish green striped tomatoes. Cool, right?

Green Zebra on left, Thai Hot peppers on top, Blond on right, basil on bottom.

3. Rhubarb. We won't harvest this summer, but hopefully will get a nice bunch next summer and in the future.

yum yum yummmmm. Also note the cute signs in background.

4. Spider Plant. We have not named it yet. In the running are: Principal Patty, Zanadoo, Tarantula, and Maggie. No image yet, but it's for the indoors. We hope the cats will enjoy it as much as these cats:

5. Delicata squash. THE squash-fries squash! Probably Erica's favorite squash ever. Hopefully it produces. This was our splurge at Gethsemane...couldn't resist...

It's a winter squash though so we're going to have to wait a few months.

Additionally, we transplanted marigolds along the corner of the rhubarb, seeded sweet peas (only 6 though, free from the Academy for Global Citizenship, a charter school in Chicago), and planted the rest of the onion babies.

JoJo found this little plant growing in the front plot and rescued it. She thinks it might be related to the backyard's adorable purple, thorny bush.

Joanna seeded catgrass for the inside, to distract the cat-sicles from the spider plant. We also discovered a compost pile under the front porch which is sweeeeeeeet. And we built a border around the garden with bricks and rocks and pieces of wood!

The backyard looks nice, though the lettuces are slow-going. We only see the Oakleaf sprouts so far. We'll survive without more lettuce though, as Jona's been getting tons in her CSA share from Tomato Mountain Farm. The beets are getting nibbled on, not sure why. We thinned a bit of the mustard spinach, which is growing pretty leggy (but tasty). Attempts at transplanting volunteer squash sprouts failed.

Forefront: beets. Background: mustard spinach. Doesn't get a whole lot of sun back here anymore because the ginko tree regrew its leaves. boooo.

Regular spinach is not thriving, but is growing steadily. Parsley sprouts are adorbs and fancy cuz of their frills. We love it!

View from above. Yum yum yum!