Happy Earth Day: Why am I trying to turn my tiny condo balcony into a mini-farm?

Welcome to my condo garden blog.

Recently, I've become facinated with the idea of local food and growing my own food. So, I've started a garden in a very unlikely place, my suburban Chicago condominium.

I've lived in the city and suburbs for all of my life and have little experience with gardening. I once killed a rubber tree plant. By the time I was done with it, it was a stick with a leaf. I killed a baby giant sequoia redwood that I got while touring Sequoia National Forest, and I killed a colius that was happily growing in a container on my balcony one summer until I brought it in for winter. I killed a sunflower,a tomoto plant, dill, basil and chives, and two bell pepper plants just last year. Ok, my track record isn't great.
I have no backyard and no frontyard, just a very small balcony. I live in a corner unit and have a south/southwesterly exposure on one side with a row of floor to ceiling windows. I get an angled morning sun and a direct afternoon sun. My condo is very bright and can feel like a sauna when it's sunny, even when it's cold outside. That's my greenhouse.

Why garden when I live in a major metropolitan area with access so some of the best restaurants, stores and parties?

After several years of being single, living in the city, practicing law and eating out, or eating processed pre-prepared foods from the grocery store, I wanted something that tasted good. I was feeling dissatisfied after meals. That caused me to eat more, and I still felt dissatisfied. Remembering my parents discussing times when peaches tasted like peaches and not cardboard, and tomotoes were plump and meaty, and not hollow and full of seeds, I realized that at least a part of my problem was that the foods offered in the average American grocery store and some restaurants are over-processed, over-sugared and over-salted. Produce comes from too far away and is harvested too early so it can survive the trip. None of this is to mention the genetic engineering of which no one really knows the ultimate effects.

The Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy

A trip to Italy in 2007 reinforced these idea to me. The food, much of it very simply prepared, just tasted better in Italy. One day we picked up some strawberries at a market in Florence, and they were the sweetest strawberries I had ever eaten. The sauces were fantastic because the tomatoes they were made from were fragrant and delicious and the olive oil came from real olives grown nearby.

Also, there have been a number of produce scandals and recalls in the United States in recent years. In 2006, spinach was banned for several weeks. I wrote a poem to mark my disappointment that spinach growers couldn't keep the animal waste out of their product. Even now, there are both a cilantro recall and a Jalapeno pepper recall in effect. So much for salsa this week.

I am a huge fan of our local farmers' markets. I love the fresh berries and peaches and the great variety of vegetables. They are a large part of my inspiration for my own garden. Another inspiration that I've had is the Mike Nowak show on WCPT. Mike talks about gardening and has had programs on community gardens in the Chicago area. We don't have a community garden in my suburb and there was a big fight over a frontyard garden in a neighboring suburb last year. It was tomatoes vs. neighbors worried about their property values. The tomatoes won and the neighbors figured out that their property values had nothing to do with tomatoes and a lot to do with too big to fail banks and bad bets on mortgage backed securities.

In any event, politics aside on this blog. I'm going to try to produce something edible this year on my balcony and in my condo if it kills me or the plants themselves. I'm growing strawberries, blueberries, cranberries, spinach, english peas, green beans, sweet bell peppers, scallions and some herbs. For herbs so far I have sowed lavender, dill, basil and rosemary seeds. I'll probably add thyme and rosemary again because so far, it hasn't germinated. I also plan on buying a tomato plant when the weather improves.

Hope you stay tuned to my condo gardening adventure.