May Garden

Our garden this year is truly much more impressive than last year, by comparison. We have added several more garden beds (3 large box beds, 2 medium beds, and 2 beds that border our fences) and five peach trees to replace a tree that we had to take down because it died.

We started all of our plants this year from seed and have been growing many of them since the beginning of March under a timed grow light in our basement.

It certainly paid off considering how brutally long and cold this winter/spring has been. Our tomatoes are vigorous and huge compared to what we are finding other places in the city! Several are already flowering and have little baby tomatoes on them. Our other plants are doing great as well. We are hopefully going to have a bit more produce this year and perhaps starting earlier in the season as well.

Last year, was our experiment year and we decided to let our tomato plants sprawl everywhere and take over. Mostly because we didn't know what else to do. This year, we are trying a support method that grows the tomato vines vertically around ropes. For the small space we have, this may turn out to be great, and will probably look pretty impressive by the time August gets here.

 This year we also planted many varieties of peppers, eggplant, pole beans, bush beans, squash, watermelon (the small ones), pie pumpkins, sunflowers, herbs, salad greens, sugar snap peas, tomatoes, tomatillos, kohlrabi, radishes, carrots, potatoes and rhubarb (which comes up every year in our yard).

And of course, our animals. Who provide us with our milk, eggs, and occasionally meat (when the ducklings grow up and the accident rooster becomes too obnoxious).

And for your amusement, my girls like to practice milking whenever they get the chance. :-)

Guacamole. The Caterpillar Himself.

"Guacamole" joined us this past weekend (in the middle of the hubbub of all the hatching) when Eric found him munching on our carrot greens in the garden. I think Lexi must always have food on her mind when naming animals. Anyway, I offered to feed the caterpillar to the chickens, but ever on the search for an educational moment, Eric said we would be making a habitat for it inside. Once I realized it was a Black Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillar, I willingly obliged. 

During the span of three days, guacamole ate and ate and ate. And just like Eric Carl's Very Hungry Caterpillar, this guy was FAT.

Last night, I noticed he had assumed an interesting position (pre-pupa stage) on one of the plant stalks, with one tiny silk thread attaching his heavy body to the stalk on either side. Still convinced he was going to literally spin his own cocoon, I figured we had plenty of time to document it later. 

WRONG. Shows you how much I know about the life cycles of butterflies.

This morning, we found this. Guacamole, over night, had entered into early pupa stage. He must have preferred his privacy.

Once he reaches late pupa stage, what you see now will look entirely different. And then in two-ish weeks, we should be witnessing yet another miracle.

I have had several people ask me if Lexi is simply enthralled with all of this - the chickens, ducklings, caterpillar, etc. To be quite honest, she definitely enjoys all of it, but it's not really a novelty for her like it is for me. To her, this is normal. It's just how life goes around here. I really love that her normal is so different from the normal of many kids living in the city, including the normal of my own childhood. My hope is that she would never take the natural world for granted, always taking the time to care about and revel in the small miracles that happen every day, all around us.

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.

Swimming in Kale

It's July. And my Kale just keeps on growing and growing and growing and growing.

We are eating it in salads, drinking it in smoothies, sneaking it into anything cooked, and packing the freezer with pureed cubes for the off season. My freezer is so stuffed with bagged green cubes and homemade granola, there is not much room left for anything else.

My friend shared this recipe with me for Kale burgers - which happen to be both vegetarian and vegan. I made them last night and they not only fit the bill perfectly for real food, but they were also surprisingly delicious!!!

Kale Burgers

INGREDIENTS

1 large bunch kale, well-washed and mostly dried

sea salt

1 large tomato, chopped

1 tablespoon almond butter or tahini

1/2 teaspoon garlic or 1 clove garlic

1/2 teaspoon coriander

cayenne to taste (if you like)

heaping 1/4 cup almond meal (I ground my own and ended up using much more than they said here)

heaping 1/4 cup flour

olive oil (I used coconut oil instead)

[1] Remove stems and chop kale into very thin ribbons; sprinkle with sea salt and gently massage; let rest 15 minutes. The kale will turn a bright green and soften. Meanwhile in a food processor or blender combine the tomato, tahini or almond butter, garlic and coriander. If your tomato is not super juicy, add a tablespoon or two of water.

[2] In a large saucepan heat a little oil. Add the kale and sauté for a minute; then add 1/2 cup or so of water and cover loosely. Let cook 5 to 8 minutes (the fresher the kale the shorter the cook time) until it’s just wilting but not totally limp. Transfer kale (leave behind any remaining water in the pan) to large bowl. Meanwhile mix the almond meal and flour in a small bowl. If desired, you could add a little cayenne to this mix too.

[3] After it cools enough to handle, add 2/3 of the kale to the blender with the tomato mixture and blend. You don’t want it to get too smooth; maybe pulse on and off for a minute or two. Transfer this blended mix back into the large bowl with the reserved kale and mix it all together, adding a couple of tablespoons of the flour/almond meal mix too. You should be able to make patties from this mix that hold together fairly well. If too wet, add more flour/almond meal; if too dry, drizzle in some olive oil or water. Form six burgers and coat each burger in the remaining flour/almond meal.

[4] Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat in a non-stick frying pan. Cook each burger for 4 minutes on each side, adding more oil if need be. They will get a nice crunchy outside with a hot, tasty middle. Serve and enjoy. (http://veggiegrettie.com/2011/03/18/kale-burger-guest-post/)

Here's how mine turned out, topped with goat cheese, real mustard, a tomato, avocado, and grilled onions and red pepper on a whole wheat bun. 

 Our vegan friends skipped the goat cheese, but they loved the burgers anyway!

 More kale burger love (and other kinds of love) going on at this side of the table...

I am loving finding new ways to prepare the food that we are growing. It makes cooking good food a lot more fun! 

Next up in the garden is zucchini and squash. Can't wait!

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.