Sweetgrass: This Week's Challenge

Yesterday was glorious. The sun was shining, the air was warming, and we were out and about. Nevermind that the temperature didn't bother to reach 40, but thumbed its nose at us, sitting teasingly at 39 degrees. Yes, I know that spring isn't here yet, and that it will probably snow again in April, but to us wind-chilled Chicagoans, yesterday was a promise of warmer days to come.

Which of course led me to thinking about gardens.

Mostly because we don't have one.

I figured out why so many people are grumpy in the city. It's because there are too many people living on too little land. I think that if everyone had access to a garden, even a small 10' x 10' plot, we'd all be much happier. Even drivers would be nicer, simply because, in all likelihood, they would be driving to or from their garden. Although, I think gardens should be a walkable distance from your house...

I've mentioned in earlier posts about the dark cave that is our back stairwell. And probably also about the annoyance of lugging groceries up three flights of stairs. But living where we do has its benefits. First of all, we don't have any traffic running past us, being the end of the line for the stairs, so no one comes by to trip on the numerous pots and whatnots I leave on the stairs. Secondly, we have two bits of landings - one right outside out back door, which extends to the opposite end of the stairwell and at this very moment contains an assortment of last year's potting soil, a pack'n'play, some painting supplies I left out there, and a drying rack which is broken but which we still use when we do too much laundry to hang dry. Our downstairs neighbors don't have this luxury, having to share their space with our potential feet. So that's nice. We also have a laundry line which (ineffective though it may be in the winter), gives our pants and blankets that fresh outside smell.

But it's the other landing which has the most potential. We have a huge "window," which is basically just an unbricked bit of wall, which faces south. Although it's hung over by our neighbor's lovely tall maple tree, and it mostly shaded in the summer, it still affords us access to light, and that's what we're going to use this year to grow some tasty things.

I've decided upon a two-fold method of gardening. First, we will have a community garden plot. I'm still trying to figure out how and where, but I'm determined to find some earth somewhere in which we can plant all manner of tasty vegetables, most notably Miss Olivia's Daucus carota var sativus, a.k.a. carrots. She picked this kind after several choice changes, and she's very excited about purple carrots. Who wouldn't be?

That being said, I'm not going to rest on any sort of laurels, even if I had any. We are going to start planning and planting our (drumroll, please)... CONTAINER GARDEN!!!

Here's the list of players:

1. Pots. You can't grow anything in a container until you have a container in the first place. We prefer good old earthenware pots, but this year, I'm thinking about upwards movement, and trying to see if I can rig some sort of trellis to hang some plastic pots from... We will start with 6" clay pots.

2. Soil. Dirt, earth, you name it. Whole Foods sells something called "Coast of Maine" potting soil, which looks cool, but is $10 for an eight pound bag... We will probably get some organic mix from Lowes or Home Depot.

3. Sun. Thank goodness, I'm not in charge of this one... Go, sun, go!

4. Water. I can help with this, but I'll appreciate any assistance from Mother Nature... There's this great little watering can from The Hunger Site.