My house is a California-style bungalow located on a slightly oversized lot on the northside of Chicago. It’s my first house, bought in May 2004 and I am convinced it is my last. My next move will be into an urn.
While I have always grown food, even in rentals, I started converting my backyard into a minifarm in 2009, shortly after tossing out a guy who believed in grass. If you are a certain type of person, you can really judge your compatibility with another based on their opinions about grass.
I believe grass, or really lawns, are the cornerstone of America’s ignorance about food. It goes like this: If you believe in dousing your lawn with chemicals so it will look nice, you are likely pretty ignorant about the interconnectedness of life. Thus, you are likely pretty ignorant about the food supply. Even if you shop at farmer’s markets, because pouring chemicals on one patch of earth impacts other parts of the earth. That’s how it works.
In fact, I would lay money that you have grass, especially nice grass, you likely shop more often at Whole Foods than a farmer’s market. You’re someone who pays more attention to appearances than reality. Whole Foods banks on you.
When I kicked the Grass Worshiper out of my house, I also killed all the grass in my backyard. It was replaced by six 3-foot by 28-foot beds running north-south. We’ve started three-season gardening with an unheated hoop house constructed over three of the beds, growing or sheltering cool-season crops from the Chicago winter.
Of course, they say that Chicago is headed toward a climate akin to Baton Rouge in our lifetimes — so possibly, we won’t need that hoop house down the road.
Along a lattice-covered north fence, I have an additional 20-foot bed that runs east-west and over in a corner by the garage there’s a raspberry bed that is forever trying to breach the perimeter.
A chicken coop with five eight chickens (or three, if you are connected to the law or plan on reporting me) sits next to the garage and also, conveniently for hungry chickens, houses our compost pile. This year As soon as I can convince Grant to start building, we are planning a rabbit hutch under the back stairs. (Grant is my Garden Husband.)
Tomatoes and cucumbers grow along a 40-foot strip of earth that is baked by the sun on the south-facing wall of the house.
In 2011, I converted my front yard into an herb garden and grow about 50 herb plants along with Tuscan kale, various peppers, peas and beans with assorted lettuces, and leftover cauliflower and broccoli starts tucked in the the spaces between.
I’m tackling the hell strip is next.
