Our garden has officially moved! And so did we, of course. I guess I can blame all of the busyness and work of moving for my slow-to-post attention to this site as of late. But now we and all of our plants are settling into our new space and getting ready to share again.  But first let’s touch base with last couple of weeks of the garden’s progress, a lot has happened since the first update.

Throughout the month of June, Chicago was hit with pretty much constant rain, so much that I barely even needed to water anything.

Above you can see the peppers are coming along well, definitely a lot of growth and flowers in the past few weeks. But no Peppers before the move.

The greens have grown so much they have at least quadrupled in size from the time they were planted. They are definitely ready for eating at this time on June 14th.

Over the first couple of weeks in June our cilantro plant bolted in to flowers. We’re new to growing cilantro but generally you don’t want your herbs to flower because all of the energy goes to the flowers and slows the growth for the rest of the plant – also many herbs get bitter once they flower. I think it’s best to use the herbs and prune them regularly in order to promote new growth, keep them happy, and get the most of them.

Cilantro is considered a short-lived plant. It’s recommended to plant new seeds every few weeks in order to keep up with the demand. At this point we just didn’t have the time to eat the cilantro before it went to seed, and it’s lucky for us because now we get to see how coriander seeds are made! Here’s an image of the flowers a couple of weeks back.

Joe and I have been moving our belongings over to the new spot slowly over the past few weeks, including all of the house plants. So in the end we basically just had our big furniture and our garden left to haul over….

It was pretty cute to see all of our largest plants in the back of a U-Haul! We sent some smaller ones along with them too. Since we only moved a few blocks away the trip wasn’t too stressful for them. Now they lay in a very sunny yard full of life. Here is a peak at some of the plants already growing in the yard…

We’re still figuring out the set up of the new garden. We kept all of the peppers together outside in full sun and the mint, greens and strawberries pushed off to the side in another section – they still get a lot of sun as well. Behind the wooden planters is a patch of mint and strawberries already established. Definitely no shortage of mint in this yard! The strawberry patch was loaded with fruit at the beginning of the month. Our little potted strawberry plant is hopefully just a late bloomer – we still haven’t seen any flowers yet.

The light in the yard is definitely full sun which is much different than our previous garden spot that had only morning and evening sun. So, with the excessive amount of rain paired with a much brighter setting, the outdoor garden has a little adjusting to do. Some of our peppers have burnt leaves.

With a few really heavy storms many of the pepper flowers have been blown off and most of the pepper plants have been up rooted by being blown over a couple of times. When we loose those cute little flowers we loose the chance of it becoming a pepper. A little heartbreaking but there is nothing I can do about it except cover up the roots and help the plants stand tall so they can continue to grow. Even though they have had some weather related struggles they are still doing really well; we may have lost a few buds and a few little branches but that doesn’t mean we’ll be short of peppers. In fact we’re already seeing peppers on half of our varieties.

The cayenne peppers are the most plentiful so far with a minimum of 10 peppers already forming! They are so long and skinny all they way from the beginning of their growth. This is the first time I have ever grown cayenne peppers. I use cayenne powder all the time but it’s not often that I get to eat fresh cayenne peppers. I’m looking forward to it.

The Hungarian hot yellow peppers are up next with several peppers already forming, quite large considering how young they are. When they are under an inch long they are a nice fresh green and once they pass an inch they seem to become a lighter color…. must be heading towards yellow! I wonder how they taste?

Next is the red chilies with a few little babies. I know we’ll end up with a ton of them and I can’t wait to make more of our Chili Garlic Sauce again! We’re just finishing up our last jar now – absolutely delicious, a perfect amount of spice with a hint of sweetness. This makes me particularly eager for these peppers to grow!

The Jalapenos are flowering but have yet to show any peppers, the habeneros are not showing much progress at all. I think they have been very much over watered with all of the rain this month.  I still have hope for them though, we had a lot of luck with them last year and I don’t see why they wouldn’t come around this time.

The banana peppers are on their way. We’re seeing a lot of flowers now as well as new growth. In the first image you can see where a few little branches were torn off in the storm. Never grew these before either, excited to see how big they’ll grow.

Now that we have a sun porch we decided to take full advantage of it and keep our herb garden indoors. It’s right outside of the kitchen so it’ll be supper easy to access while cooking. Also I think it’ll be easier to keep an eye on them and make sure they’re being used quickly enough.

This is the beginning of out indoor garden, we have a lot of house plants out there right now soaking up sun with the herbs. Our last apartment had very little sunlight and as a result most of the plants were not doing their best. So this is a much needed retreat for them. The tree in the corner is a grapefruit tree. My Dad planted it from a seed years ago for my brother and it was passed down to me last year. Over the winter it wasn’t doing well at all and I thought it was done for. But once I brought it outside in the spring it perked back up with tons of new growth, and now it’s living very happily on the porch.

Below is a quick peak at our herbs. Starting from the top – lady lavender, dill, munstead lavender, sage, oregano, French thyme, rosemary, orange thyme, and basil. All doing really well, we have already started using them too!

Let’s not forget about our cilantro, or shall I say coriander? We missed our chance to eat our cilantro, so now we’re moving on to coriander seeds. I have always known that coriander seeds are cilantro seeds, but I never knew exactly how it happened. It all makes sense now.

More to come soon!

The beginning of May was rather cold here in Chicago. I anxiously waited for it to warm up so I could get my potted garden started. I worried that I would be getting a late start but actually began the first installation of plants one day ahead of last year. May 16th 2010.

This year will be a different though. The potted garden will have an eventful summer as it will be moving locations with in a month of its inception. Luckily Joe and I were able to find a lovely new home with a fantastic yard! I’m so excited for it, the yard will have plenty of space for our pots as well as the opportunity to expand (in real ground) next year! More on the new spot later.

One of our absolute favorite garden shops in our neighborhood (or in the world) is Adams & Sons. There you can find a huge selection of vegetables, herbs, house plants, and pretty much anything else related that you would need for an extremely reasonable price – this place is awesome! The people are friendly and helpful, plus they usually have a super sweet shop cat walking the grounds – what a dream life! Anyway, this is where we scored a lot of our pots in the past as well as most of our sprouts for this year’s garden. Make time to head over there sometime if you’re planning a garden of your own.

We didn’t really need to invest in anymore pots this year but it’s always a good idea to freshen up your soil. This year we bought a basic potting soil and mixed it up with an organic mushroom compost which is supposed to be an optimal addition for growing vegetables. We bought a lot of the same vegetables & herbs as last year but also switched it up a bit and added some new things.

For peppers, we’re growing cayenne, habeñero, Hungarian hot, jalapeño, red chili, and banana peppers. This year we planted cayenne, banana, and jalapeños in the large ceramic pot. Last year it was red chilies and jalapeños which surprisingly, when grown mixed up in the same pot, were very hard to tell apart at times. We’re hoping that we won’t have the same problem this year with choosing a variety with each a different shape and color. We’re expecting another great pepper harvest!

For greens, we’re trying out baby spinach and Swiss chard to start. We definitely want to do kale again but we’re having a hard time finding it so far this year. We checked 4 different garden shops and even went back only to find the kale had come in and sold out right away! Blast. We’ll just keep looking for now – we have held it’s place in one of our wooden crate planters, although the other greens are beginning to take over! It’s possible that we may even be able to plant some in the ground at the new space.

Herbs include orange thyme, french thyme, oregano, sage, cilantro, & munstead lavender. From another nursery, and planted a week after, we have dill, rosemary, & lady lavender.  Having your own herb garden is so great because it makes it easy to spice up your dish with fresh flavor at any time. Plus, it saves you a lot of money because you only chop off what you need or you’ll just use what is ready to eat – a lot of times when we buy packaged fresh herbs we won’t be able to use them all in time or we get tired of the flavor by the time it’s all gone. I’m hoping to keep this part of the garden growing throughout the year.

Orange thyme, oregano, & French thyme. Thyme is delicious and it’s fun to grow different varieties at the same time so you can really taste how different they are. I’m looking forward to figuring out new ways to use them. Oregano is also delicious but it’s not an herb I’m really use to cooking with – I thought if we grew it ourselves it would be a great way to get acquainted with it.

Sage. Last year we grew sage as well and made this bread.

Lady lavender, rosemary, & dill. Rosemary is one that we will definitely get a lot of use out of, seems like one of the more hardy herbs that we grow. Dill on the other hand seems rather delicate, this is the first time I’ve tried to grow it.

Mint. This mint is from last year, it came back strong starting back in March! It basically claimed this entire pot and I don’t think it has any plans to give up any space. There were a few varieties in there last year but the peppermint ruled and took over. Luckily Joe and I make a mean mojito and we seem to require lots of mint in the summer months.

Cilantro, basil, & munstead lavender. Basil is an obvious choice, deliciously compliments so many dishes, I love it. I’m thinking we might have to expand our basil garden once we move so we can make pesto and more. Cilantro is another herb we use a lot of, we wanted to include it in our garden to see how it grows. I don’t expect to get too much out if it but any amount is fine – I just hope we can keep it alive through the summer. It seems to grow taller and taller but never wider. Luckily it’s the least expensive herb to buy so we won’t have trouble keeping up with our consumption.

Of course we couldn’t forget about strawberries! We’re hoping to actually eat the few berries we grow this year! We plan to bring it inside right before the fruit is ready to avoid donating the first bite to urban nature. This year we planted them in a strawberry pot gifted from Joe’s mom! Thanks! The plant seems very happy.

As a side note, Joe and I began our move over the weekend and gave the new yard some love and water, we found a covered up strawberry patch which had many hidden fruits – of course we ate what was ready, hopefully it will perk up and keep bearing, it looks promising. It was perhaps a little too exciting to discover – some sort of treasure. I just think strawberries are beautiful, that’s why I enjoy growing them so much.

So happy it’s garden time again! The next time you hear about this one it will be on it’s way to a new home.

On May 17th 2009 our potted garden was born.  Planting on the porch is something I always look forward to, it happens every year but this time we have decided to plant with a focus on food.  The majority of our plants are growing and cared for with the intention to eat.  We started all of the plants from greenhouse sprouts and we used over 300 pounds of dirt & peat!  Most of our pots are ceramic or terracotta, but we also have 2 larger wood pots built by my dad for our tomatoes, cucumbers, and mint. So far we have seen a lot of progress in just a couple of months and I couldn’t be more excited about it. Here is a set of photos to introduce what we are growing in summer of 2009 (fair warning- it’s a long post); to start off we have some basic shots of when the garden was being planted going through the evolution of the porch. Stay tuned for the details of what is here…

We are growing five types of peppers: jalapeño, red chili, serrano, habenero, & ancho.  Every plant has several peppers already; none are ready to be picked, but it’s clear that we will be eating a lot of peppers this year! It’s so much fun to watch the flowers bloom, the petals fall, and the peppers emerge into something we certainly can use.  Can’t wait until our red chilies and habeneros begin to change color.

The strawberry patch, or rather the one pot of strawberries we have, were the first to travel through their fruit cycle in this garden. It was possibly the most exciting one as well! It took several weeks for the flowers to form into strawberries.  The small fruits were so beautiful they looked plastic and fake! Over the course of a few days they turned from green to white to the most stunning fleck of red in the yard.  How did they taste?!!! Ask the squirrels! Sadly they got to them before we did ;( and with the storms of Chicago the rest was history, our plant will now remain fruitless until next year.

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Brussels sprouts.  A lot of people don’t like them but we happen to love them, so we thought we would try growing them.  If you haven’t seen a stalk of Brussels sprouts before take a look at this post on 101 Cookbooks.  I’m impressed.  They started off as a couple of scant leaves protruding from the dirt and quickly bloomed quadrupling in size in only a couple of weeks!  At this point we aren’t seeing any drastic growth- probably because they are a bit crowded with four in the pot. We can see on the stalk that there are tiny sprouts forming and keep our fingers crossed that they will continue to grow.

The cherry tomatoes are planted in a long wooden crate like planter (thanks dad).  There were 8 sprouts to start with plenty of room.  However, “plenty of room” quickly turned into a huge leafy burst out of the planter.  These plants are luckily separated from the rest because they have aphids. Yikes. But these little bugs have not stopped the plants from growing; we give them weekly soap baths to keep the bugs down but can’t seem to keep them out for good. Anyone have a winning plan to defeat these little guys? Lady bugs? Anyway, with or without aphids our tomatoes are flourishing, everyday there are new flowers and new tomatoes showing up. Tons of green just waiting to turn red- squirrels, we will not let you get a hold of these babies!

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Kale! As you already know we love kale. Naturally we had to include it in our garden. It started off rather small and is now about ready to eat. We’ll let you know how the first harvest goes…

There’s more! We also have 2 types of lavender, 2 types of basil, sage, thyme, mint, cucumbers and several other plants that are better left uneaten…  So far we have been able to use a few of the herbs in meals and drinks. Mojitos are a popular drink at this house and with the way our mint has been growing it seems that we will keep a healthy supply at the tips of our fingers. Basil and thyme have already been used a few times as well, details to come.

After a long scroll down the page you’ve made it to the end of the first look into our garden.  There will be more to show in the coming months that will include recipes.