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!

Updates!

We made a sign/walking path for part of the front yard plot. Of course we had to make it a rainbow. It was a wonderful Sunday.

Lots of things have happened recently! No update last week because it rained and we didn't do anything. We just sat tight.

Erica got white onions for planting in her Market Basket from Growing Power (perk of being an intern!) this week, so we had to plant them. We planted four short rows very close together for green onions, and  four small rows spread apart for large onions to dig up at the end of the summer. Some had already sprouted, so we used those for the large onions. In the middle, we planted some kale.

Erica planting white onions in front plot. She so cute!

We had to plant more kale because there was a mishap. Our window box seeded with kale and lavender suddenly turned into...

boooooo(b)

...red flowers and whatever in the middle. There were three hearty kale sprouts. We suspect someone took the initiative to beautify the front porch without realizing the sprouts weren't weeds. Oh well. On a positive note, Jo is reminded that she's learned a lot and probably would have made this same mistake a year ago.

Additionally, we have begun labeling things:

Onions! and JoJo cleaning up shop!

Erica seeded a bit of basil, all of the swiss chard gifted by One Seed Chicago (stingy), and some bull's blood beets while Joanna mixed all of the colors for the "Garden" sign. Jo had artist's block around making the purple, so Erica had to take over for her on that front. Good work, Huggies.

Foreground: spinach mustard. Background: beets. Far background: sneakers.





The beets, spinach, mustard spinach have shot up in the last two weeks. Today was super sunny and warm and I swear to you, the sprouts grew a quarter of an inch this afternoon.

Mustard spinach reminds us of butterflies.

We seeded Ruby and Oakleaf lettuce in the remaining empty space in the backyard. We're experimenting with small-plot seeding practices, so we scattered the seed, rather than planting it in rows. Hopefully the plot will be full of bi-colored crunchy leaves in a few weeks.

No comment.

We also seeded a pot of Thai Chile peppers (hott), and another with regular basil, since our potted lime basil and peppers were destroyed by Cats and Cold.

We hope that our robin friend and hir soon-to-be babies will not eat too many of our worms. Joanna will continue to sing-song hello in the morning, but hopefully without continually freaking hir out...

Front porch pals.

We hope your gardens are also growing well!

Real Food Fellowship Essays

Joanna got me a new-used spade shovel because the one we were using is flat shovel. This came in handy tonight. I am so lucky!

We haven't done much garden work this week. The weather dipped down to near-freezing last week and we've been busy. Jona had some fly problems because of the compost I mixed into some pots. As the sun set this evening, we turned the compost bucket, double dug the remaining bed in the backyard, and seeded bloomington spinach, mustard spinach, and parsley.

Joanna's abandoned worm bin makes a nice outdoor mini compost bin. The brick on top somehow deters beasts from breaking in. 

Three weeks ago, this was a pile of smelly, anaerobically digesting food scraps. After Erica intervened by turning and adding lots of compost, it finally begins to look something like soil. Though it still smells. Jona is working on it!

I (Erica) submitted an application for the Real Food Fellowship, a 9-month program for young leaders from around the country to network, build communications and leadership skills, and create media projects. Fingers crossed!

Our cute backyard garden so far. Not much going on!

Here are some my answers for the application:

Who or what are the most importance influences in your life? Why? We invite you to include positive and negative influences on your life, struggles that you have overcome, your hopes and inspirations.

In the spring of 2008, when I was a sophomore at Grinnell College, thirty-two of my classmates received homophobic hate mail with phrases such as “God hates fags, we hate fags.” For the first time in my life, I feared walking outside alone at night. For the first time in my life, I began to understand my actions and identities as political, not exclusively personal. I realized that someone could assault me, physically and mentally, simply because of my sexuality.

My college community joined together to respond to the hate crimes. We cried, hugged, held rallies and forums, wrote love mail, made art, and chalked the campus in affirming messages. To help me pro-actively process the events, I produced a half-hour documentary archiving students, faculty and administrators’ responses. Organizations on campus continue to screen my film for new generations of students. However, the college failed to institutionally challenge homophobia (and other oppressions). After more than four years of student pressure, as well as continued threats and assaults directed at the queer community, the administration finally instituted a hate crimes response policy.

The hate crimes of 2008 made me fear for my personal safety, but they also made me feel invincible as part of a fierce community of queers and allies. I gained a deeper capacity for sympathizing with other oppressed groups and learned the importance of creating institutional change in challenging oppressions.

Erica double digging the second bed in the backyard.

Describe your community (the places you grew up and/or where you currently live). What does it look like and what do you love about it? What do you want to change about it? How is your community impacted by the current food system?

This is a hard question for me because I belong to many communities: born and raised in Kansas City, MO, attended college in Grinnell, IA, and currently reside in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. I’d like to address the queer community, though it’s not necessarily geographically defined. Things I love: our struggles for the right to love, feminist bookstores, flannel, our campy puns, artsy posters, and radical potential. I truly believe that the queer community has a critique to offer the world and I know we’ll make unimaginable progress in my lifetime. However, I also know the profound disappointment that inevitably follows profound hope. As an incredibly diverse community, we also have a lot of internal issues: racism, classism, transphobia, sizeism, ageism, violence, and yes, even sexism.

The queer community is also a part of all communities, so we experience all aspects of the food movement, from Whole Foods to food deserts. We are snobby queers who feed only organics to our children, and we are teenagers who pop into Quick Trip for our daily Cola-flavored slushy. Most of my friends see the food justice movement as well-intentioned, but boring and bland. I want them to see themselves as having a stake in the movement. One of our major challenges is learning to organize ourselves across identities and food traditions so that we respect all choices and cultures but still organize for food justice.

Baby beets growing in spite of the cold!

What motivates you to work towards social justice? Why is it important to you to change our food system?

I recently saw a theater production about violence within the LGBTQ community. One of the characters received hate mail that threatened violence. They looked towards the audience and asked, “But it’ll never happen to me, right?” Every part of me wanted to shout, “No! You are a brilliant, fierce, young genderqueer person who makes the sky shine, who makes me excited for the future of this world! Everyone can see that!” I was ashamed that my realistic answer is more like, “Hopefully not.” I want to create the world in which I don’t have to prepare my community for violence, invisibility, and tokenization. I want to create the world in which we are all celebrated. The momentum from this experience extends beyond LGBTQ organizing and into other anti-oppression work. I am responsible for dismantling all systems of oppression/privilege, including ones I benefit from.

The queer community struggles with the industrial food system around health and embodiment. The food system tells us what we should eat, what “normal” bodies look like, and what/who we should desire. Simultaneously, we work within the system to eliminate “normal” bodies/sex, build bodies that empower us, and build/recover food traditions.

Food is inherently an act of celebration. It is literally and metaphorically the stuff that becomes our minds and hearts. It is a tool for creating power. Food needs to be a major part of our revolution so we can take our bodies back from industrial agriculture and the systematic oppression of our families.

More Erica double digging.

Sprout People

"Try to imagine you are a seed in this Easy Sprout. You've been sitting in a bath for 12 hours. You want to rinse off. Feel the fresh water showering down on you. Turn off the shower when you feel good and clean."

"I hold my Easy Sprout thusly."

Hilarious!

Two-Thousand-Eleven

Happy 1st of May!

This month, Erica is vegan and Joanna is going to try very hard not to feed her gelatin-filled vitamins. Oh wait, that already happened. Last night, we fell asleep looking at Johnny's Selected Seeds and the Seed Savers Exchange catalogues. We had a busy day today making vegan sausages, banana-granola waffles, and (soon) a wicker basket.

Back yard at Jona's house - pre-expansion. The bed is now twice as big!

Today, J-Kale and E-den achieved the following:

• Purchased seeds and soil from Gesthemane Garden Center in Andersonville
• Seeds from Botanical Interests: Kale (red winter), Lavender (purple ribbon), Catnip, Beets (bull's blood), Basil (italian large leaf), Pepper (chile thai hot), and Spinach (bloomsdale), Sprouts - Mung Bean (for Erica to eat while she's vegan - Botanical Interests)
• 2 40-liter bags of soil with fertilizer (brand started with a B?)
• Seeded a window box with kale and lavender
• Seeded a small pot with cat nip (for the cats...and maybe for tea?)
• Buried some compost junk under the SW corner of Jona's front yard bed
• Dug up weeds, found some rocks, discovered lots of tree roots

We also made a garden plan for Jona's house! Note the dirty finger prints on the left side...

Robins came to say hello. We maybe saved a worm's life by burying it. But it already had a gash in it from the robin, so who knows.

Update on other plants:

• Large pot seeded with basil (lime, saved from last year) around beginning to mid-April, now have a few small sprouts (indoors)
• Large pot seeded with 4-colorful-bells pepper mix (seeds from last year), Olds Seed company (one small sprout) ...placed next to the radiator, but they probs just need warmer soil even now
• Small pot of last year's lime basil, planted probs in Feb - ha! - which has several large but lanky plants holding on for dear life
• Small pot of merigolds around beginning to mid-April, looking good, several sprouted
• Detroit Dark Red Beets (Weeks Seed Company, a year old) in backyard after double digging the area and topping of with a very small later of potting soil (will need to amend soon). They're doing well, lots have sprouted in spite of being lots of rain and lots of coldness. We love beets. They're little beasts!

Geraniums to the left, lime basil to the right. Neither is getting quite enough sun, but they're hanging in there. This pictures is a couple of weeks old.