In 2013, Nicole and Dan Virgil lived in a lush, affluent suburb of Chicago. Dan had a good job. Nicole home-schooled their two kids.
Nicole decided to plant her own garden. She and her husband Dan, an engineer, don’t do things by half-measures. They watched YouTube videos on gardening, checked books out of the library and drew up plans. They built a raised bed and dug a wicking reservoir under it lined to store stormwater and drain the swampy, clay soils. They experimented with two plots. They dropped seeds directly into the spaded-up lawn and other seeds into a fertilized raised bed. Most seeds rotted in the clay soils of the lawn. Those that germinated did not thrive in the nutrient-poor earth, but the seeds in the raised bed sprang up in a few days and thrived, producing in coming months vegetables of deep vibrant colors that were delicious.
Autumn comes swiftly to Chicagoland. The Virgils hated to stop gardening. On the web, Nicole noticed farmers in Maine extended the growing season with long, plastic tunnels called hoop houses. You can buy hoop house kits for a couple of hundred dollars, but the Virgils are DIY people. Dan drew up plans for a wood frame connected with PVC pipes. He shored up the supports so the tunnel could withstand 80 mph winds and heavy snow loads. He carefully calculated the height and width of the tunnel to maximize the buildup of passive solar heating inside. They located the hoop house in the middle of the backyard, so it was not visible from the street.
The one thing the Virgils did not think about was the city’s zoning board. Dan and Nicole had lived in Elmhurst for several decades. Elmhurst is a town of squat, white-trimmed, yellow-brick ranch houses placed in the center of spacious lots like iced pastries on a tray. Green lawns frame the houses. The lawns are largely unfenced, rolling along block after block, connecting one neighbor to another, a green communal thread. The Virgils saw neighbors build hockey rinks in their front yards and assemble trampolines and outdoor living rooms in their backyards. They figured the hoop house fell in the same category of a temporary recreational structure. They didn’t count on one neighbor calling the city, asking if the hoop house needed a permit.
One day, they came home to find a Property Maintenance Violation Notice on their front door. The city required a permit for their “greenhouse.” The Virgils stopped building. Dan went down to City Hall and explained their goal—to extend the growing season for a few months. They were not building a greenhouse. They’d take the hoop house down in the spring. He came away with the understanding that as long as the tunnel was temporary, it was ok, like the skating rinks and summer cabanas.
For anyone who isn’t in a position to grow their own food and also has this question, look into Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). At the start of the year, you buy a share in a local farm, and you get a box of veggies every week of the growing season. [There are variations: you can get a large box or a small box, you can choose to get a box just on alternate weeks, etc.] By having their money up front, the farmer is no longer at the mercy of start-of-season bank loans and the risk of a bad harvest: the farm is guaranteed to survive to the following year. In exchange, you get a box of peak produce: no lettuce that’s been making it’s way through distributors for three weeks, or apples that have been warehoused for nine months. No food that’s traveled halfway across the world - everything is small scale, seasonal, and incredibly fresh.
This isn’t always just limited to produce either! Several CSA farms near me do livestock as well, from chicken to lamb to venison and everything else.
CSAs are awesome. Unfortunately they can often be expensive for people who are struggling financially, but if you can join one I would.
My parents have belonged to one of those for years. One of the cool things about theirs is their farm usually grows much different varieties of vegetables than you can find in regular grocery stores. They regularly get white and purple carrots, and some variety of orange carrot that has a little bit of a peppery/gingery bite to it. One year they got some heirloom variety of celery which had too much flavor eat raw. Imagine biting into a stick of celery and being physically overwhelmed by the amount of celery flavor you’re experiencing, like, “Jesus Christ… the celery… too… powerful…” It was absolutely killer in soups though.
You have cool parents null
I’ve belonged to a few different ones (moved a couple times, one wasn’t a great fit, and one farmer retired during the pandemic), and there’s always something new. Not just heirloom tomatoes and different types of hot peppers, but odd varieties of herbs (lemon basil is fantastic!), odd fruits like paw paws, ground cherries and incredibly fresh Asian pears, weird upscale vegetables that you usually only get at higher priced restaurants and groceries, etc.
Between my boxed farm share and the pick your own extras that come with it, it’s probably about 80% of my veggies for the entire year.