Tomato TomAto

Our cherry tomatoes are taking over our garden world! Other than the treacherous treasure hunts I have to go on to retrieve all the hidden tomatoes buried under all the intentionally untended vines (this is what happens with a first year gardener - you quickly learn the many reasons why you prune and stake!), we are enjoying the fresh sun-ripened tomatoes immensely. :-)

August is for Tomatoes!

 August is tomato month. My cherry tomatoes are finally ripening. We are picking about a pint or more every day, and eating them at astonishing speeds. My beefsteaks are still solid green. Hoping for those a little later in the month.

 This silly kid LOVES cherry tomatoes! Our favorite part of the afternoon is going outside to pick our snack.

And life wouldn't be our life without silly animals to constantly amuse. Here we have our fowl flower.

 Guess what?

...Fluffy chicken butts!

Planning ahead

 We recently put in five new boxed beds in our garden area. The four tons of dirt we ordered was once again delivered and dumped into an enormous pile in the alley. We spent about an hour last Saturday morning working to haul it into the newly built beds.

 These are the three big beds, the same size as the original three behind them. Eric built two more beds back against the fence, on both sides of that roofed structure, what Eric calls the quail hutch (no quail yet though!). Our compost pile sits beneath it. The new back beds will grow more of our climbing plants, with the fence as perfect backing for trellis.

 One of our beautiful Buff orpingtons. Apparently there were some bugs the chickens were after in the new dirt. Our neighbors even came out to take pictures of them, saying, "It's not every day you see a sight like THIS in Chicago!" To which Eric dryly replied, "Well it is for you!" hahaha (Our neighbors do love us...promise. ;-)

 Faithful dog, Sambi Bambi, as Lexi is now calling her. She is usually great with both the chickens and the ducks, although every once in a while she does try to take a bite...

 My tomato plants have gone wild back there. I am anticipating a very large crop of cherry tomatoes in the next few weeks (YUM). The front beds will be planted with some fall crops in the next week or two, and then next spring we will plant all the boxes, expanding our garden by a considerable amount.

Our favorite chicken, Little Lulu. Almost mature enough to start laying! Nest boxes are built and the wait for our morning omelets continues.

Fresh garden salad

It is perfectly lovely to live smack dab in the city and still be able to go outside and pick our dinner ten minutes before we eat it. That's what I call fresh, not to mention organic as well. 

 A few of our squash were finally ready, as well as some green bush beans. I didn't plant enough beans this year to satisfy our pallets (Lexi LOVES them raw - something I didn't anticipate back in February when planning the garden), but this growing season has been a learning curve enough as it is!

 These are Thumbelina carrots. I'm sure you can guess why. They are super cute, and I ordered the seeds with Lexi's excited voice in mind ("LOOK MAMA, BABY CARROTS!!!!"). The voice IS cute, as imagined, but somehow pulling these out from the earth with their enormous leafy tops leaves you wishing for a little more bang for your buck. In other words, more carrot. On the upside, they taste delicious. All two bites of it. :-)

 We are eating everything from our garden raw right now. Eric isn't ever thrilled about cooked or steamed veg anyway, so everything gets chopped up and thrown into the dinner salad. Here we have the carrots, beans, squash, and zucchini tossed with our Bright lights Swiss chard and Red Russian kale. Sprinkle on a little balsamic vinegar mixed with honey, add a side of fresh bread smeared with goat cheese and voila! Supper. Fresh, fast, and super delish.

A walk through the garden

I somehow went from not being able to keep a plant alive to suddenly having the capability of growing food. Every day I view my garden as some sort of miracle. A gift of nourishment to me and my family. 

 These tomato plants are the very same ones that I started from seed back in March. I grew the seedlings in little egg cartons on my window sill. Now they are the biggest living things in the gardens. Eric cut the tops off of two of the beds in order to accommodate their size. No problems with squirrels so far.

Two weeks ago Eric built a triangular ladder trellis for the squash and cucumbers. What we didn't consider when planting, is that not all varieties of zucchini and squash climb....adding it to the very long list of things to remember when planning the garden next year . Fortunately it does help keep the huge plants a bit more contained though, which is incredibly helpful in such a small space.

The peas are climbing up the twine that is attached to the rafters above this bed. Interestingly enough, my plants only climbed as high as the top of the cage, even though there was nothing stopping them from climbing higher. The sugar snap peas we have harvested so far are the sweetest I have EVER tasted. Unfortunately the yield is quite small, giving us probably about a salad bowl full if we were to harvest them all at the same time. Right now we are enjoying snacking on them straight off the vine.

 And because I can't NOT post pictures of my chickens, I will let you know that I may or may not be owner to ten of the silliest chickens in all of Chicago.

And, perhaps, the two silliest girls as well.

How does my garden grow? With sweet girls and a whole lot of horse poo dirt.

My sweet baby turned one last week. Right after we received three tons of dirt in our alley.

Here's my pretty one waiting for our garden delivery.

The truck arrived and we laid a tarp in the alley for them to dump the soil onto.

See the steam? This garden mix is fertile stuff. 

And the shoveling begins.

This horse poo will make my garden grow.

I made the garden beds the week before, and loosened all the soil underneath so the plant roots can grow down deeper. Here's the rest of the "crew" filling the beds.

My favorite little worker helping move the soil into the beds. 

My sister smoothing the soil.

Filling up her bucket. She helped us the entire 45 minutes it took us to move the soil.

The baby did a great job watching and smirking at us as we worked. I think she's a baby genius.

More shoveling. The pile is quickly dwindling!

Lexi enjoyed a fun wheelbarrow ride after we were done! And what is with that cheesy grin with the eyes closed?!?

And let's not forget about the chickens. They are in their ugly adolescence. And boy do they have LONG necks! They have been chirping incessantly. Yesterday I walked in and Gloria flew up out of her tub and smacked me in the chest. After a few days of hunting for missing chickens behind Eric's camera equipment, Eric finally finished the coop enough for the chicken to inhabit it (he had to put it off for a few days because our sink was clogged).

They are out of the house now, thankfully. Although I do kind of miss their chirpy music all day long. So I traded in the chickens for a dog, which I love. I mean, you can't really cuddle with a chicken, unless you like getting pecked at and scratched. But this dog? Love her. And this girl. I mean, is she for real? 

Too much cuteness.