Recently planted in the dirtbox:

Buttercrunch letttuce
Compact basil
Thyme

To be planted:

Dill
Tomato
Chinese lantern (not a veg)
Money plant (not a veg)

We had 7 nice raised beds at our old house. We are doing a puny amount of container gardening at the new place, but will not be doing any food planting until I can clean fill and raise a bed along our garage. I fear the soil is nothing but heavy metals and evil.

Last week I dug the veg patch over, very small, to plant beetroot, lettuce, rocket, onion.

Seedlings started to show through for tomatoes and peppers.

Need a bigger patch and a green house, but it's good for the kids to get into it.

Johnny 13 wrote: I fear the soil is nothing but heavy metals and evil.

I think you'd have to be crazy to eat anything out of the ground in Chicago unless you brought in new topsoil.

Me, I'm going to a couple small containers for herbs and wait for my CSA deliveries to start.

Soil pH kits are available at hardware stores, nurseries and home centers for a couple bucks. In addition to pH, soil should be tested for nutrients and to detect if contaminants (lead, etc.) exist. I mean, you could be planting a garden on what was once a septic system! If contaminants do exist, you better be prepared for plan B (amending the soil, raised beds) which can be quite costly.

You should, of course, do these tests before planting an herb/vegetable garden in an urban setting.

And Mr. Jay Ryan - you've got a regular green market going on there! Good work!

Johnny 13 wrote:We had 7 nice raised beds at our old house. We are doing a puny amount of container gardening at the new place, but will not be doing any food planting until I can clean fill and raise a bed along our garage. I fear the soil is nothing but heavy metals and evil.

Do NOT use railroad ties to make your raised beds. This is a popular mistake.

Railroad ties are treated with creosote, which is an herbicide.

dontfeartheringo wrote:Railroad ties are treated with creosote, which is an herbicide.

It's also pretty carcinogenic as well.

My last beds were nice clean cedar, which worked well enough. Since the new owner does not want a garden, there is even a chance I might get to reuse the wood.

Plus my growing are is so small, I would not want to give over so much of the space to the width of a railroad tie, even if they were friendly.

My landlord tilled up my plot yeasturday... that ruled...