Grow something this year. Send me the photograph.
Nine seasons of evidence that a small piece of Chicago ground, one evening a week, pays you back in food and in quiet.
A picture of a table does more than any advice I could give.
I never set out to convince anyone. I sent friends a photograph of the week's harvest because I was pleased with it. The replies kept arriving in the same shape: what would you plant, how much room does that take, could I do it on a balcony. A season later they were sending pictures back.
That is the whole idea here. Publishing nine seasons — the thin years included — so the next person can see exactly what one small plot produces, and start theirs with realistic expectations and good company.
- GROUND
- 100 SQ FT · OR FOUR POTS
- SUN
- SIX HOURS
- TIME
- ONE EVENING A WEEK
- INPUTS
- COFFEE GROUNDS · EGGSHELLS
- EQUIPMENT
- A FORK, A SCALE, A PHONE
No budget line for fertilizer, no sprays, no raised-bed kit. Nine seasons ran on this list.
Pick three crops, not thirty.
Cucumbers, tomatoes, one green. They are generous, they forgive a missed evening, and they make a table worth photographing by July.
Weigh it, arrange it, take one frame.
Same table, same light, thirty seconds a week. In September the row of photographs is the thing that keeps you going next spring.
Send it to five people and hand out the surplus.
The photograph travels further than the vegetables, and the vegetables should not travel further than your block.
Post your first harvest under #chandragrows. I repost what I can.
INSTAGRAM →2026 — no garden this year. New ground in 2027.
THE ARCHIVE →