***

Oh, I  (Sincerely, Emily) always seem to have a lot of plans, but as you know, there was a big wrench put in my plans so far this year. My friends have planted peppers and tomatoes for me and I will get the okra seed in the ground in the next week. That is about it for my garden plans. If things had gone according to “plan” I would be adding tomatillos to my garden this year. I have wanted to plant them for the past few years, but it just didn’t happen. That plan will wait until Spring 2014.  Right now I have peppers and tomatoes already forming.  I am glad to have things growing out there.

Cubanella pepper 4-19-2013

***

Tanglewood Farm is always abuzz with plans; some come to fruition, some shrivel up and die like a cast bug. Heh.

So far this year my biggest plans have been to try to pick up where I left off last spring. The weather last year was so atrocious that I admit I threw in the towel early. Okay, I planted a lots of things, and I admit I got to harvest a handful of tomatoes and some greens, but it was just such a bummer, especially after I had ordered and planted (and paid for) 80+ new berry bushes, including raspberries, dewberries, blackberries and gooseberries. By the end of the summer, regardless of watering, everything was crisp and brown to the roots.

So this year I have reordered most of the plants that died last year and I am starting afresh! I am also putting a lot of the young (wimpy) bareroot plants that I’ve ordered in pots until they are a little more established and until the ground is a little more planting-friendly. Right now we are soggy and sloshy from the house gardens to the back orchard (which, actually, is currently two feet under water!) so planting will have to wait, but planning… planning is always going on here at the farm!

***

It’s killing me, but I think this year is probably a no-corn year.  I’m working on my rotation, and finding that without corn I have almost too much space, which I think will be filled with beans– boring, but practical (all the practical stuff is boring). Follow my gardening fits and starts at MyFolia.com/gardener/Xan!

***

Are you planting something new this spring?

Nearly two-dozen people packed into the back room of the Peterson Garden Project Learning Center Monday night for a class on canning. The event marked the first official class to take part in the facility, which opened in April. It was also the final event of Swedish Covenant Hospital’s Wise Woman Week.

Laura Scott of Ukrainian Village said she attended the class because, “I grew up on a farm until I was ten and I wanted to get back to my roots.”

The majority of participants—whose experiences spanned the gamut of canning—admitted to being afraid of the time-honored, end-of-summer ritual either because they felt it was too complicated, or that they would do it wrong and waste the food.

LaManda Joy, the founder and president of the Peterson Garden Project, author of the gardening blog TheYarden.com and host for the evening, reassured the women that canning is safe, fun, cost-effective and healthy.

“People are so afraid of not being perfect in today’s world and it makes me sad,” said Joy. “Canning is easy. Don’t be scared, just try it.”

After giving a brief history of canning and an overview of veggie preserving traditions, Joy passed out sample of her canned piccalilli and spicy pickles. She walked through the basics needed for canning and then had attendees participate in a demonstration on proper technique. The women took turns boiling jars, doling out the preserved foods and checking to ensure lids had sealed.

They left the event with pint- and half-pint-sized canning jars and the confidence to try canning at home.

Here are some basic how-tos on pickling from Joy, who draws most of her knowledge from her well-worn cookbook: The Joy of Pickling by Linda Ziedrich.

Basic Ingredients:

• Whatever you’re pickling.
• Salt. Canning & pickling salt is the best for this process. If you can’t find that, try kosher salt, but be aware that you’ll need to adjust your measurements from the recipe.
• Vinegar. You can use various kinds, from rice vinegar, to apple cider vinegar, to Heinz Pickle Perfect, to Gruken Meister (which works great for “quickles”). As long as the vinegar has an acidity of 5% you’ll be fine.
• Water.
• Spices.

Basic Tools:

• Glass jars. Can be half pint or pint in various shapes. These can be reused each season as long as the lids fit securely and there are no chips or cracks.
• Lids. You buy these in bulk and get them new every season.
• Rings. This is what screws onto the lid. These can also be reused each season.
• Large mits. To protect your arms from the scalding water and hot glass.
• Long tongs. Best when they have rubber on the tips.
• Jar funnel. You need one that fits the size of the jar.
• Jar lifter. To remove jars from the boiling water
• Magnetic lid lifter. To keep lids sanitized while canning.
• Canning rack. To sit the jars on in the boiling water.
• Canner. Can be water, steam or pressure based. You can also use a large stockpot if you’re just starting out and want to try canning a few jars.
• Non-reactive pot. To cook the ingredients being canned. Glass, stainless steel, ceramic, or a hard anodized aluminum, like All-Clad, will all work.
• Jar wrench or key. To open your sealed goodies once you’re ready to eat them. It’s the bottle opener for cans.

Joy’s tips on the canning process:

First, follow whatever recipe you’ve chosen for the ingredients you are canning. You can also get creative, adding woody herbs like thyme, rosemary or sage to vegetables being canned, or star anise into jarred fruits.

Sterilize the jars by placing them in a pot of boiling water for 10 minutes. Be sure the jars are not touching each other. Remove the jars with tongs, drain the water from them, and place them on a towel or tray. Never place them on a cold countertop, or the glass could break.

Fill the jars with your delicious ingredients using your funnel. Allow for ½ inch headroom at the top of each jar. Wipe the outer rim of each jar with a hot towel to ensure all food particles are removed and the jar is clean. Lightly bang each jar down on the towel to remove any excess air bubbles. Put the lid and the ring on the jar.

Then place the filled jars back into the boiling water—you can do this one at a time—and make sure there’s enough water in the pot to cover the top of the jars. Water will evaporate as you boil, so to replace the lost water, add in water from your tea kettle. You’ll see bubbles coming out of the jar as the heat interacts with the headroom and the rubber seal. Leave the jars in the water for the length of time specified by your recipe. Make sure the jars are not touching each other while in the water.

Next, use the jar lifter to safely remove each jar and place it back on the towel or tray used before. Once you have them out of the water, listen for the metallic popping sound of the lid being secured. This may take a minute or two.

To test out if the jar is properly sealed, push down on the center of the lid. If you don’t hear a sound, you have a successfully sealed can, which can sit in your pantry from one-to-three years. If you still hear a popping sound, give in another minute to see if it sets itself. If not, place that can in the fridge and eat it within the next few weeks.

Finally—the best part—whenever you’re ready for a little bit of goodness, dive into your favorite jar of canned goods and enjoy!

The Peterson Garden Project is a volunteer organization committed to teaching people to grow their own food.

Heidi Lading is a freelance writer in Chicago.

Photo credit to Heidi Lading

In our society the realities of sustainability run up against the national character. Rigid self-sufficiency and individualism are the holy grail; in the words of Maxwell Anderson, how you can tell an American is that you cannot tell him what to do, even when it’s in his own best interest. In the current political insanity, any suggestion that we try to save our common heritage–like, for instance, the air–through sensible regulation, is excoriated as “removing choice.”

Enter the idea of the commons–those things that we own together, starting with the air, but also the water, the language, the creative works of humanity.

What I’ve discovered through the creation of the Peterson Garden Project, is that for many sustainable initiatives that revolve around community action, we lack a language. The language of communal action has been removed from the dialog, or vilified as “communist” or “socialist.” But some things, even most things cannot be done alone. The old saying that ‘your right to swing your fist ends at my nose” needs to be understood again to extend to our food and our health.

A new language does exist, in the old language, through the concept of the commons. What we hold together. What we all must use, but also spare, share, and save. Where our right to swing our so-called individual rights ends at the epidemic asthma in the inner cities because of pollutants, or the loss of aquifers because private owners have drained the wetlands that used to belong to all of us. We’ve allowed private bank accounts to be the fist, but haven’t stopped their swing at our collective nose.

Last week was the annual Good Fest Festival in Chicago (formerly the Family Farmed Fest), a really wonderful trade show all about restoring local, sustainable food systems to the urban landscape.  The exhibitors are all local farmers and food makers. It’s where I first learned how to change my diet to nearly 100% local food.

This year my friend LaManda Joy of The Yarden, founder of The Peterson Garden Project, was on the panel “Growing A Good Food Community”, about building urban communities through gardening and creating gardens by building urban communities. The interesting thing was that her fellow panelists were my old high school friend Jay Walljasper and Julie Ristau of On The Commons.

The panel, moderated by Megan Larmer of Slow Food Chicago, was beautifully constructed around the steps we need to take back collective ownership, working in a very American way, through individual action.

It starts, as I say, with the language. Jay talked about first, the need to start thinking again about the commons, and also laid out a basic way to think about the commons again. As important, he talked about how language can lead this new, old way of thinking, focusing right in on the difficulties I have had getting funders in particular to understand that what we’re doing is not a farm with a single owner or board, but collective action for individual benefit.

But it cannot stop with the language; only talking only works for academics. Enter Julie Riskau, founder and former publisher of the Utne Reader and current spokeperson for On The Commons. Julie talked about turning language into policy initiatives of the sort that lead to intelligent municipal ordinances which, for instance, stop creating criminals of people who put their edible gardens in their front yards because that is where the sun is.

But policy is only effective with an army of individuals putting it to work at street level. Which is where LaManda Joy and her Pop-up Victory Gardens come in, as well as the many other community gardening, and community preserving, and farmers markets, local school councils, in fact all of the community-based efforts that will save our cities and towns.

We need to restore the language, so we can affect the law, so we can own the activities that will make our communities livable.

The email popped up in my Inbox a few months back.  The subject line read “Peterson Garden Project: Happy New Year for Gardening.” I knew what it meant: sign-ups for our little community garden were coming up. Last summer, I ponied up 45 bucks to rent my little corner of the earth and grew some stuff.  Being a novice gardener, I had fair to middling success, depending on the month, learned a ton and laughed hysterically through the whole thing. Perhaps you read my past posts, chronically my trials and tribulations.  At certain moments, usually while I was lugging something heavy and dirty or yanking yet another diseased plant, I wondered “What was I thinking?!” At other times, usually as I drove home popping Sun Gold tomatoes in my mouth, still warm from the day’s heat, I thought “Isn’t everything just awesome?!?” The sheer power of those little tomatoes turned me into a tree hugging 12-year old girl.

So it was with a little trepidation perhaps that I clicked on that email.  Did I really want to garden again?  Let’s think about this. Sure, I faced some challenges last year.  The location wasn’t ideal and I had trouble working visits into my wacky schedule. My plants didn’t exactly flourish – tomato blight, powdery mildew, pests of infinite varieties. The effort-to-harvest ratio was low. It wasn’t exactly the garden experience of my dreams but I have to tell you, the enthusiasm of those garden organizers was contagious. Reading that email and then the newsletter, I was getting twitchy.  Within minutes I was searching for my wallet.  Big surprise.  Truth is, in those few short months, I’d grown rather attached to that little 26 square feet of dirt.  After all, I put it all there. 10 wheelbarrows worth.  I wasn’t about to hand that off to someone else so easily.

I had shown some glimmers of promise, afterall.  I grew some pretty fabulous salads and that one carrot I managed to produce was outstanding.  Once I got the tomatoes going (on round 2), there were rather spectacular if late to the party.  To be true, Zelda the Killer Tomato Tree was an absolute beast, destroying every tomato cage in her path but a prodigious producer.  It truly pained me to pull her at the end of the season and I had a clipping in a jar of water on my windowsill well into November, clinging to that last little bit of optimism.  That night I had to remind myself that I did learn a lot along the way- water more frequently and those tomatoes won’t crack.  Plant densely – higher yield and it’ll cover up the mistakes.  Don’t get attached to things and don’t take it personal - yank ‘em if they look squidgy and just call it a day.  Oh – if nothing else, fertilize, fertilize, fertilize.  And maybe this year I’ll look into powdery mildew and figure out how to combat it.

Where these garden folks really excel is the information they compile for our use.  The Facebook page is a wealth of information – seminars, seed exchanges, fund-raising events, garden planning tools, seed sources – and a great example of how to use social media to wonderful effect.  It’s great.  Too bad I don’t take advantage of it all but it’s nice to know it’s all there is I need it, as are gardening experts ready to help out.

So what to plant this year? I made a list, very practical, of what worked well last year.  Tomatoes, greens of all kinds, radishes, peppers. Then I added the stuff I really wanted that didn’t work so well last year for various reasons.  Carrots, cucumbers, beets, fancy pants melons.  Next because I’m a visual kinda gal, I mapped it out and made a plan.  Looked good.  Sounded good.  Stick to the plan, chickadee.

I went online and found a lovely heirloom company recommended by the Garden folks – Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.  I started searching for the items on my list, adding them to my basket one-by-one, sticking to the plan. Then, as I tend to do, I went off on a few tangents and added some other things … like beans. Why don’t I try beans? My plot neighbors had a great trellis; I want one of those. Eggplant, I love the long skinny Japanese eggplants.  Click.  Chinese 5-color peppers?  Click.  All kinds of nifty tomatoes. Click, click and click.  Oh, add the Lettuce Leaf Basil too.  Click. Tomatillos – how great would my own salsa verde be?  Click.  And cilantro for that too.  Click.  I may have added a few other things that caught my eye.  Whoops.  The plan expanded a smidge.

The seeds arrived a few weeks ago and I’m rather excited about it all.  The packages were beautiful! How could I not be excited looking at them? Last weekend, on the sunniest day in recent history, I got them started in little compact soil do-dads and promised to pay more attention to them than last year so they thrive. (And survive. Minor detail.)

The garden is now open part time but I decided to wait to plant anything.  I’ve been burned far too many times by a fickle Chicago spring.  My little pods would be just fine on my dining room table until it was safe.  My caution was justified.  It snowed this morning.  On April 18th.  Good lord.  I will probably wait until last frost (5/15) then direct sow some carrots and radishes with the rest to follow.  (If nothing else, I’ve got the lingo down.)  Certainly I’m going to add some rich soil enhancement stuff but I need to research that first.  Maybe I’ll get a rake.  Or a shovel. Or both.  And definitely sturdier tomato cages. Another Zelda and those flim-flam ones from last year are toast.

So we’ll see how this goes.  Right now I’m cautiously enthusiastic about the whole thing.  A little bemused perhaps.  Of course I’m already planning out the fabulous meals I’ll make with my bounty.  Assuming that is, that I’m able to grown more than one salad at a time.

STRESS BAKING THERAPY FACTOR:  PRETTY LOW KEY. This is the easy part, where you dream up visions of sugarplums and everything is possible – and clean – from the safety of your laptop.  I have a rather what-the-hell attitude about it all.  Put it in and see what happens. For me, that’s the best way to go about things anyway.  I’m optimistic about everything but cautious with the melons … the fancy-schmance variety I adore are notoriously difficult to grow so we’ll get ‘em started, pop ‘em in and see what happens.  For some reason, I’m feeling good about this. Easy for me to say from the comfort of my couch.

This morning I ripped up my garden plot and called it a day.  That’s most of my final harvest above.  Literally the last gasp of everything she had to give.  There’s word of a frost tomorrow and the garden as a whole closes up on the 6^th but I’ve been holding out as long as I can.  All summer I’ve been fumbling along, a gardening rookie with a 26sf plot in the Peterson Garden Project.  If you’ve been following along with my trials and tribulations, you’ll know it hasn’t been easy.  There are 1,000 things I’ll do differently next year and I suppose, that’s the point.  I’m still learning.

One of the things I agreed to when I started was to abide by organic gardening principles.  Yeah, I meant to look this up.  So if “organic gardening principles” means doing absolutely nothing then yes indeed, I am an organic gardener.  I watered.  I yanked my diseased plants.  I didn’t mulch beyond a bunch of straw around my tomatoes.  I didn’t really prune though I now realize I should have.  I didn’t get around to researching the powdery mildew on my squashes so those were eventually yanked but only when they were dry and crusty and I was convinced they wouldn’t by some miracle come back. Some sort of “organic gardening practice” might have helped with that.  I didn’t really weed either.  In fact, at one point I was cutting lettuces frequently for salads and around the 6^th or 7^th time, realized one of the greens I’d been cutting was a big fat weed.  Oh how wonderful.  Apparently my definition of “organic” includes eating some superfluous stuff once in a while.

NOW it decides to bust a move?

Basically, I just let it grow and I’m not sure this was the best tact.  During the summer months, every plot around me looked full, lush and vibrant while my little garden plodded along looking a little sad and neglected.  It didn’t matter how much I pruned or fertilized or fussed, it just looked sad and empty.  Then, toward the end of August something extraordinary happened and the gardening gods smiled upon me.  The damn thing took off.  Except I wasn’t really there to enjoy it.  Of course it was very late in the season and OF COURSE I was just about to leave the country for a month.  Doesn’t it just figure?

a handful of radishes

When I returned in early October, I was hesitant as I rounded the corner of Peterson Avenue.  A good friend had adopted my garden while I was gone and took good care of it.  Knowing what I left, I wasn’t expecting much.  As I picked my way through the plots to good old #C20, way over in the corner, I was stunned.  The damn thing had thrived.  All the lettuce seeds I has thickly strewn about in frustration in the empty spaces a few weeks back were sprouting.  I had a lot of fat green tomatoes weighing down the plants, the radishes looked good and by god, were those sprouts swiss chard popping through?  Why yes, yes they were.

big fat green tomatoes

Looking at my tomatoes, I was a bit alarmed.  The plants were taller than me and heavy with enormous green tomatoes.  Holy crap.  These plants had been busy in my absence.  Would these things even ripen before the first frost?  I wasn’t sure.  I trimmed back a bunch of stems and offshoots, opening up the plant and ensuring that the tomatoes got as much light as possible in these waning daylight hours.  It sounded logical.

Zelda, the big one on the end

One tomato plant in particular, that I affectionately called “Zelda”, was a beast.  As much as I pruned her back, she shot out in new directions, fatter than ever.  One day, I came to the garden and Zelda had broken free of her flimsy tomato cage and flopped over to the side, heavy softball size green tomatoes weighing her down.  No matter what I did, how much I shored the ‘ol girl up, Zelda could not be contained.  It was a weekly struggle to keep her fat trunk and multiple branches contained in my little plot.  It wasn’t until a week or two ago, when I went all Edward Scissorhands, did I feel she’d stay put.  It was with a touch of sad regret this morning that I grabbed her fat trunk and pulled up her deep roots.   She was a good ‘ol girl.

Overall, this gardening thing was a hoot.  Along the way I learned a few things that hopefully, I’ll remember next year.  Probably not but what the hell.

waiting...waiting...waiting

-       Watering once a week doesn’t cut it. Many of my fancy pants heirloom tomatoes were huge but cracked.  Two seconds of research revealed that inconsistent watering causes this.  Well damn.  Look what you can learn on that internet thing.  Given my schedule I absolutely need to work in more watering or maybe I should look into planting arid desert varieties that can survive with infrequent watering.  Because that makes total sense in the Midwest.

-       Seed bomb the damn plot. I was very meticulous at the start, marking off precise squares with string and abiding by the 1-2 plants per square foot rule, carefully marking each planting with a cute metal marker.  Oh baloney.  By October, everything was all over the place and the markers no longer applied.  Looking around, the best garden plots were packed with stuff coming up every which way – orderly and yet not too fussy.  I realized that this is not only productive it helps hide your failures.  When I had a failed planting it was very obvious because that precisely marked square was dead empty.  I could have at least hidden or faked it better.

the aftermath of Zelda the cage destroyer

-       Ditch the cheapo tomato cages. Zelda took one of those things out in no time, bending its flimsy supports easily.  I need to find something better and stronger.  These heirloom tomato are beasts.

-       Plant earlier! The project started late – we weren’t able to get in the ground until mid-June – so I was behind the eight ball from the beginning.  Next year I’ll get an earlier jump on it all.

-       There’s no shame in plant starts. Early on, a well-meaning fellow gardener said to me “Oh. You bought plants. I thought that was cheating.  I started everything from seed.” Well, you know what?  Good for you now go away.  Some of us aren’t that organized and if we wanted to harvest anything this year, a trip to the nursery was necessary.  That said, I think I will try seeds next year, started indoors early on and see how it goes.  If that doesn’t work out I’ll just run up to Gethsemane, drop a bundle and get some plants.   It’s always good to have a back up plan.  Or three.

-       Do more research. My cucumber, squash and melon plants were a big fat bust. Onions were a no-show too.  Not sure they were the best choices or if I handled them correctly.  My ignorance and lack of interest probably had a lot to do with this though I won’t be surprised to see those seeds sprouting when I show up in the spring.

greens! greens! greens!

-       Go with what you know. Man, can I grow some greens!  They apparently thrive with my lackadaisical gardening practices. Though full of holes and not winning any beauty contests, they seemed to do well and tasted just fine.  My pak choi was out of control – the more I clipped off leaves, the more it grew.  I had lettuces and arugula coming out my eyeballs.  The chard, if it had more time, would have done well too.

baby baby carrots

-   Go with what you like:  my Sungold tomatoes were amazing.  Small, sweet, bursting with flavor.  Incredible.  I often ate my whole harvest on the way home.  Definitely more of those on round 2.  Same with the breakfast radishes and the sweet wonderful carrots.  Make that carrot, singular.  I harvested one stinkin’ mature carrot and pulled up a bunch of teeny tiny ones this morning.  Those would have been great given another month.  (Note to self:  start those way earlier.)

This morning I was the only one at the garden, which happened a lot.  As I typically work nights and weekends, a time when most people are free, I rarely saw anyone and was frequently alone, especially late in the season.  It’s very peaceful though I suspect there was a social aspect to the community garden that I missed each weekend.

As I was cleaning up, a man walked by on the street and asked if we were going to leave everything and do it again next year.  I told him I wasn’t sure as the project administrators are waiting to see if the landowners will allow us to do this again next year.  He said he owned a business on a nearby corner and was very happy the garden was there.  The lot had been vacant for many years, full of trash and ne’er-do-wells.  He said he had a picture from the 1940’s when the corner was also a Victory Garden, very similar to ours and he was thrilled with what we had created.  The garden made him smile every day as he walked to work.  That made me smile.

I hope we are able to do this again next year.  I’m sure I’ll do 500 things wrong again but I had a ball.  I’m just getting started.

and that's that

Our raised bed garden newly built

Unfortunately, in early September, I still had nothing to show for my efforts…or expenses!  I convinced myself it wasn’t a big deal and even laughed a bit about it.  But one day, while unlocking the door to my house, I glanced over at the garden and saw a big green bean waiting to be picked!  I ran to investigate and found that we had a whole bunch of green beans that were full fledged real food we had grown.  I was delighted!  I also learned from Peterson Garden Project‘s Facebook pictures that what I thought was spinach, was actually basil.  Thus, a home grown feast (at least partially) was born!

"Bountiful" Harvest of Success!

I created this garden because I thought we as a family would benefit from the experience.  I also felt it was a less expensive way to provide healthy food.   However, my expectations did not align at all with what actually took place.  The real benefits were ones I did not anticipate.  We really didn’t get much in terms of produce from our garden.  I found that, other than some limited time with my kids, I did most of the work alone.  However, when I first began this gardening project, I became a part of a large community of gardeners, both online and in face to face interactions.  Some of these interactions have expanded well beyond the concept of gardening and have blossomed into full blown engagement.  Additionally, when I first saw the beginnings of green things pushing up through the soil, I experienced a sense of joy that I didn’t anticipate.

And when I saw that one lone green bean, again, I felt a deep sense of happiness.  When I first embarked on this project, I assumed success meant lots of home grown vegetables for my family.  Although by that measure, the garden was a catastrophic failure, I am overwhelmed by how meaningful the experience was for me.  And I find that it aligns in significant ways with another recent experience.

About a year ago, I attended SocialDevCamp Chicago (SDCChi.)  Although much of the content at the conference was far beyond my ability to understand, I was moved by the incredible interactions I had with participants.  I suggested to Tim Courtney (one of the SDCChi founders) that we needed to do a similar technology conference for nonprofit organizations.  Tim said it was a great idea.

THE Tim Courtney

Over the next year I worked to build this nonprofit technology conference.  My vision was to create an event for 200-300 nonprofit professionals to learn about technology.  That event,  Chicago COUNTs: A NetSquared Camp took place on September 12.

(Created by Paul Saini Photography)

And like my garden, its success looked very different from what I first anticipated it would be.  We had 70 people participate, not 200.  However, those 70 people were a group of rock stars in my world.  And because the group was only 70 people, there was a feeling of intimacy among participants.  People felt as though they were part of a very special community that was filled with wonderful resources, insights and support.  The feedback I received both during and after the event confirmed my own reactions to the day.  People expressed feelings of being profoundly impacted and suggested that this event was the beginning of exciting new changes in the community.  Ultimately, I experienced the supreme joy that I had hoped I would at Chicago COUNTs…but not for the reasons I had thought.

So now, as I embark upon building my own nonprofit consulting business (please send organizations and individuals my way!) I am thinking about these two surprising experiences.  I have a sense of what I want to create.  I want to work with organizations to help them expand their networks and to design innovative and exciting substantive programming.  I am confident these are two areas in which I could have a strong and positive impact.  Once again, I have expectations about what my success will look like.  However, after this past year of surprises, I am a little curious too.  Because clearly, success isn’t always what we expect it to be.

The whole city’s got food truck fever of late, and I guess I’m not immune. Last weekend, idling in my car while a friend ran an errand at Chicago and Ashland, I was thrilled when the Gaztro-Wagon pulled up next to me at the light.

Driver Matt Maroni waved at me. I waved back — and then blurted out, “You guys should come to the Hideout on Wednesday! We have lots of hungry people!”

“What time?” he hollered back.

“6 to 8, every Wednesday night! We have bingo games!” I replied. (To self, in head, “Shut up! You sound like such a hopeless dork right now.”)

“We’ll be there!” he shouted. And then the light turned green and he drove away.

Well. Imagine my surprise when he actually showed up. (I did Twitter — or tweet, whatev.– to confirm, identifying myself as “the crazy lady yelling at you out of the Jeep on Ashland.” But, still.) It confirmed my faith in the power of social networking the old-fashioned way, unplugged and face to face. Or at least vehicle to vehicle.

I promised Maroni a hungry crowd and the bingo stalwarts did not let me down. He showed up just as the grill ran cold, and players charged the truck for boar belly naan-wiches and oatmeal pies.

The Gaztro-Wagon isn’t really a mobile kitchen, as city law still prohibits any actual food prep — including simple slicing, scooping, or spreading — from happening on board. Rather, the food is prepared in the outfit’s Edgewater storefront, and then packed up and kept warm on the truck. Thus, the menu is limited to easily transportable fare like the signature “naan-wiches,” high-end fixins wrapped in pieces of chewy naan bread. I opted for a rich short-rib ‘wich served with peppers and pickled red onions. It was fantastic.

And while I saw later on the Twitter that one diner thought the potato, pesto, and arugula naan-wich was bland, Anastasia could not stop raving about hers.

And Beckett gave an enthusiastic thumbs up to the chocolate pie. Or, he would have if his hands weren’t occupied making sure no one snatched it away from him for a bite

So, on behalf of all of Veggie Bingo, thanks very, very much to Maroni and co. for following through on one loony streetcorner request. And, will you come back next week?

Now, oh yes, the bingo! There was a swell turnout for caller Lawrence Peters, who has the distinction of being our first-ever caller last year and is to date the only person in Veggie Bingo history to call a game from the end of the bar, rather than the stage. This time, he commanded the stage, and the bingo cage, dispensing prizes of honey, hot sauce, beer, and vegetables with all the charm for which he is known.

Thanks to the generous gardeners at the Bowmanville Garden, we had lots of supplemental prizes. Jenny here took home a beautiful glass hummingbird feeder (“hummingbirds not included”), and they also provided gardening journals and several environmentalism- and gardening-themed books, some of which we still have and will be using as prizes in the coming weeks. Thanks Bowmanville!

I’m on vacation the following two weeks, but I’m leaving things in the capable hands of the Hideout,  VB assistant Shaindy Robeson, and our all-star callers. On the 25th the bingo stage will be claimed by acupuncturist Claire Mooney and real estate assistant Sarah Frier, who used to team-call bingo at the California Clipper. Our caller the following week, on September 1, is the lovely Megan Larmer, of the Chicago Raritites Orchard Project.

Proceeds from next week’s bingo benefit the Altgeld Sawyer Corner Farm; September 1 we welcome the Peterson Garden Project. Photos and more information on both of those endeavors to come soon.

And …. that’s all for this longwinded post. See you in September!

]]> http://stresscake.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/how-does-your-garden-grow-not-so-well-actually/ Mon, 16 Aug 2010 05:13:13 +0000 stresscake http://stresscake.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/how-does-your-garden-grow-not-so-well-actually/

So if you’ve been playing along, you’re probably wondering what’s become of my little plot in a community garden.  A few months back, I got the brilliant idea to buy into a local community garden with my own little 26 sf plot.  Visions of juicy tomatoes danced through my head, chased by melons and squash and oodles of arugula.  Oh the things I’d do!  I bought my seeds, got them going then ditched those in favor of plant starts.  The timing was all off.  On site, I shoveled and hauled like a burly construction worker, eagerly planted, watered enthusiastically and waited for something wonderful to happen.  Then I had issues.

ALL of my tomatoes plants had blight and had to be pulled.  My cucumbers got something called powdery mildew.  Visions of my own personal Charentais melon patch shriveled up.  God only knows what happened to my zucchini.  As I looked around at all the robust, healthy, HUGE plants in the plots around me, I thought … WTF?  I may be a tad clueless but shouldn’t my enthusiasm for this project trump that?  Apparently not.  That big fat tomato heading up my previous post?  Garbage.  It was depressing.  It was disheartening.  My aspirations of becoming the Queen of Urban Gardening (ok, maybe Princess?) were in the dumpster next to some withered sad little things I once planted.  There are no pictures of this time in my garden life.  I call it the brown period.

look at everyone's plots!

But I’m a tough cookie.  I don’t give up easily.  I replanted, crossed my fingers and did a little secret dance that may or may not have involved a shimmy, a grand jete and a two-step kick-ball-change combo when no one was looking.  Oh sure, my inexperience caught up with me.  It was inevitable.  Growing herbs in a window box does not a full-on gardener make.  Who knew?  But I was aware of my errors.  I didn’t water enough.  I should have planted more densely.  I should have done more research on pest control stuff, those little a-holes.  Whatever; shoulda, coulda, woulda.  Moving on.

sun golds!

So I overcompensated, more determined than ever to become Ms. Green Jeans.  I mulched.  A pal gave me some stinky ass fish gut stuff that I mixed with water and drowned my new tomatoes – and I swear, they shot up two feet overnight.  I decided to focus on the things I could grow – greens and radishes – and blanketed the empty spaces.  I seed bombed the joint.  I vowed to figure out what to do about powdery mildew.

harvest loot

You know what?  It’s working. Last week, I braved the killer mosquitos to check out what was what.  Things were looking good!  I had an honest to god harvest.  A few peppers, some serranos, a radish (one! ha!), enough arugula and greens for a salad, a bit of swiss chard and pak choi for a stir-fry and best of all … wait for it … tomatoes!  I about peed myself in excitement.  My Sun Gold cherry tomatoes were just sitting there, on the vine, bright orange and bursting with sweetness.  I didn’t have many – less than a dozen – but I ate half of them right then and there and almost sang an aria of joy.  I ate the other half in the car, giggling.  They didn’t even survive the drive home.

big fatties

Later, I dressed the rest of my loot with a simple vinaigrette and chewed thoughtfully.   It was fantastic.  I looked in my bowl and thought “Hot damn!  I grew a salad.”  Sure, the arugula had miniscule holes from some unknown pest I haven’t yet figured out how to eliminate and there really wasn’t enough to share if I had wanted to share (I didn’t.)  But I don’t even care.  It was mine and I did it and it was an awesome feeling.

Then yesterday, I spied some big tomatoes on each of my other plants and was like a proud mama.  I swear they popped up overnight – it’s gotta be the stinky fish stuff.  You can bet I’m going to coddle those damn things.

salad greens ... and maybe a tasty weed

I’m learning.  I’ll get there.  Some things worked, others didn’t and that’s OK.  Already I’m thinking about what to do differently next year.  If something doesn’t take, I’ll yank it and try something else.  I’ll try channeling my inner garden Yoda.  Practice my rain dances more diligently.  If I’ve learned anything, it’s flexibility – something I have to remember to apply in the rest of my life.  Maybe I’ll figure that out along the way too.

STRESS BAKING THERAPY FACTOR:  A REAL MIXED BAG. There’s something to this gardening thing.  It’s rewarding, satisfying and rather fun to plant something and see what happens.  Plus there’s the added benefit of getting to EAT what you grew yourself.  That in itself is so very wonderful.  Then there’s the aggravation, the frustration of these little things you’ve poured your heart, time and whole damn wallet into, only to see them shrivel up and die despite your best intentions.  It’s the classic combination – bittersweet, the pleasure and the pain, the sadness and the joy.  And yeah, it’s a little stress inducing too.  Exactly what I’m trying to get away from but the risk-reward scale tips a little more to the sunnier side of things so I have to say, I’m hooked.

well, I can grow radishes

Pssst … I’m going to let you in on a little secret because it’s just too funny.  That photo at the very top?  The green and lush one?  That was taken about a month ago, when I was still figuring it all out.  About a week later, I realized half of the green lush things were weeds.  HA!  I guess I’m pretty good at cultivating weeds.  Once I pulled them, my plot was rather bare.  Oh well.  Live and learn.

While we were waiting for the weather to warm up and the official go-ahead to plant, I started some seeds at home.  Would there be enough time?  I wasn’t sure but I did it anyway in the spirit of the project.  I started tomatoes and a few other things but then later, during a farm tour, had second thoughts and bought some wacky heirloom tomato starts from a wonderful little place, Brightflower Nursery.  If I wanted to harvest anything this year, I figured I better give them a head start.  I also played around with the garden planning tool on the Gardener’s Supply website.  I changed my layout 256 times as indecision crept into my head. How many tomatoes is too many tomatoes?  Would cucumbers fit or just take over the whole plot?  What else could I possibly squeeze in my 26 square feet?  In the end, with the help of this tool, some good advice and a ton of research … I had a plan.

oh sweet little seedlings

For the last two months, I had a slew of little seedlings plugging away on my dining room table waiting for some news.   Then last week, came the word – the raised beds were complete, plots had been assigned and soil had been delivered.  Hooray!  It was time to start planting!

I gathered up all my crap and decided I should really find out where this garden was.  Yes, it’s true.  I signed up for a garden plot without really knowing the location.  I’m nutty like that.  I knew it was on Peterson somewhere (it is called The Peterson Garden Project after all), not far from my home but hadn’t yet taken the time to find out exactly where.  A quick iPhone google search to GPS and I was off.  (See how easy that was?  No worries.)  I fully intended to get an early start but with my typical morning lollygagging, I got to the garden around 11am, just in time for the heat and sun – yippee! – but it was overcast so I didn’t think much of it.  Mistake #1:  never underestimate the sun and never misjudge your pale winter skin.

my very empty garden bed

Heidi, the helpful volunteer on duty, helped me find my plot off in a far corner, filled me in on how things work, what I needed to do and made me feel a little better about not volunteering.  Sigh.  I trotted off to check out my plot – looked good to me but what do I know?  I liked that I was along the edge with a building, rather than additional boxes, on one side.  Room to plop my stuff without getting in anyone’s way.  A gardening neighbor pointed out that I would have late afternoon shade from the building to the west which would be perfect for evening weeding and such.  Too bad I work nights.  I’ll think about how lovely that evening shade is in the mornings while I’m watering my plants with the sweat dripping off my nose.

Big Red

First things first:  fill the bed.  With a borrowed wheelbarrow and shovel I started carting loads of soil/compost to my little plot.  Me being me, of course my plot was the 3rd farthest plot away from the compost pile.  Of course it was.  Story of my life.  A quick consultation with my gardening neighbors revealed that I would need 10-12 loads of dirt depending on the wheelbarrow.  One quickly pointed out that the red wheelbarrow was best - thank you thank you thank you.  Man, I had some hauling to do and a short time to do it as I had to go to work in a few hours.  I looked around for teenage boys willing to make a quick 20 bucks to no avail.  Where are those little devils when you need them??

done and done!

Now I am a shoveler of Olympic caliber, having honed my skills over many snowy Chicago winters with a very small car that weights about 5lbs and gets no traction, oh joy of joys.  Navigating a wheelbarrow, however, is another story.  My ineptitude became apparent within minutes as I stumbled over the gravel, wobbling and weaving in and out of the rows of garden boxes.  I may have even dumped a load prematurely (you’re welcome gardening neighbor to the right.) But with some practice, I got the hang of it and filled the bed fairly quickly, in my humble opinion.  I am woman, hear me roar! I then handed the wheelbarrow off to another gardener and wouldn’t you know it,  the wheel promptly fell off on her first load.  Egad.  I felt kind of bad about that.  I felt worse that my first reaction was “thank god it waited until I was done.”  Very un-community like.  I told you, I suck.

ick ick ick

The thing is, for every two shovels that made it in the wheelbarrow, one went in my shoe.  I need to work on my accuracy.  At then end of the day, I emptied a gravel yards worth of rocks from my shoes and decided I needed to throw my socks away (seriously – ick.)   I also decided to come back the following week to plant.  Turned out to be a brilliant idea, you know to avoid the weekend crowds, let the soil settle and all that.  And get a nap in.

When I left last week, about half the boxes were full of soil and some had been planted.  I came back this week to an entirely different landscape – so green and full of life!  It was quite lovely.  So much had been done over the weekend – nearly every box was full of soil and almost all of those were fully planted, some with full grown plants that were fruiting.  They looked like they’d been there for months!  I carted in my sad little seedlings, floppy tomato plants and packets of seeds to sow directly in the rich black dirt.

marked and ready to plant

I noticed other folks marking off their plots with string, and being a visual linear kind of gal, decided to do the same.  It made me feel more organized than I really was.  Funny thing is rather than regular ‘ol string or gardening twine, I used baker’s twine.  I really like how the classic red and white striped combination sasses up my little plot.  Hey, it’s what  had on hand.  So with my 26 even 1′x1′ squares, I laid out my plan, lined up my floppy plants and droopy seedlings, got my seed packs ready to go and started digging.

In less than an hour I looked up and a sense of pride and joy made me smile wide.  My straggly tomatoes were bright and upright – if not a little leggy – in their silver cages.  Teeny droopy seedlings of cucumber, melon, peppers, jalapeno, chard and kale were planted with care and a prayer (truth be told, I’m not sure about these.  I may hightail it to a garden center for transplants anyway.)  From seed I planted more kale and chard plus pak choi, carrots, beets, onions and various kinds of lettuces.  Most of these will come in for a fall harvest, which is fine by me.

my little plot!

While all this is fine and good, I had a major dilemma.  I had started too many seeds because you just don’t know what will germinate and grow and what won’t.  So I usually overcompensate.  But this year, I was going to stick to the strict guidelines of my online plan.  I promised myself for the success of this little plot – no overplanting.  For most varieties, this meant only one plant per square foot marker to make sure they have enough space and sun to flourish.  But choosing which one seedling will go in the garden and which won’t is like picking which child will survive.  Argh!  Sophie’s Garden Choice.  It’s agonizing!  You pick the fattest, chubbiest, heartiest – the one you think will do the best – and put the others to the side.  I swear I saw the rest of the unchosen visibly droop at not being picked.  It was the saddest thing.  My friend Amanda, trying to make me feel better later on said “Thinning is a vital part of gardening.  You gotta do it.”  While I know she’s right, it didn’t make it any easier.  I ended up taking some extras home to plant on my back porch.  How silly am I?  Though I did toss a few.  Sigh.

such a cool idea

I went back today to water and looked around.  My plot needs some time to fill in but I’m hopeful.  I’m still not sure about my seedlings – they look pretty sad – but I’ll make the call this weekend.  Many of my neighbors bought rather robust transplants and others are doing the whole plot from seeds. It’s interesting – we all started with the same 26 square feet and it’s fascinating to see what everyone has done with the same space and how it varies so widely.  Some folks are extremely creative – most had plant markers of some kind but I love what this woman did with stones to mark off her plants (and yes, I’m assuming this is a woman.  A dude wouldn’t take the time to do this.) I’ve seen a lot of kids happily digging away, which is pretty cool thing to see when you live in the city.  I can only imagine how excited they’ll be to harvest  (hell, I’m excited!)  I’ve even seen some fabulous garden fashion – some of the most fantastic hats, I tell you.  Gotta get me one of those so I don’t look like such a schlub.  And I think I’m going to name my plot “CeeCee”.  She is in the “C” quadrant of the garden after all.  And yes, she is a she.  What else would a garden that gives forth fruit be?  Male?  Uh, hello.

STRESS BAKING THERAPY FACTOR:  EXTREMELY HIGH. There’s a couple of things happening here.  The sense of community that comes from working a project like this is lovely – everyone says hello and gives helpful encouragement.  The physical exertion involved in digging and carting dirt and plants around is fantastic.  There’s the sense of accomplishment on seeing these little things grow.  Constant daydreaming about what I’ll potentially make, bake and share with my windfall.  And hell yeah, the harvest.  That’s the best part!