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Trying our hand at urban gardening… again

16 July 2017

My wife and I own a condo in Chicago. We’ve lived in it for a little over 25 years. Each summer we decide it would be nice to grow some flowers and vegetables on our deck and every fall we swear that we will never try it again.

Of course it never works out that way. Every May we head for the garden shop to buy some plants and every summer we spend our spare time trying to keep the squirrels out of the planters. Usually unsuccessfully.

This year we miscalculated and had one empty planter. I don’t remember where they came from but we found a packet of tomato seeds and dumped them into the empty planter not expecting anything to come of it. If we can’t grow already sprouted plants, what chance did we have with seeds.

Surprise. They sprouted. Not only did they sprout, they grew to a height of several inches. At this point we realized that the planter was not big enough so, yesterday, I split them up into four large flower pots.

So, will this be the year we actually get to eat something we grew. Maybe. Stay tuned. There are still the squirrels.

Photo and text © 2017 Gary J Sibio. All rights reserved.

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Written by Gary J Sibio

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  1. The Epsom salt article I wrote didn’t include anything about it, but the spray is effective on repelling squirrels. Two teaspoons Epsom salt per gallon of water, mixed up and put into spray bottles and sprayed on the veggies, or in this case tomatoes, should help. The plants should be sprayed once a week when the plants aren’t in direct sunlight. The spray also fertilizes the tomatoes.

    If I have a chance, I’ll write another recipe for repelling squirrels using hot peppers. That one works on deer and rabbits, too.

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