A plot this small only works if it feeds more than one table.
Share and Store are steps thirteen and fourteen. They are the reason this is farm to table and not farm to photograph.
Neighbors first, then family, then the freezer.
Nothing was sold. Weeks in August produced more than one household could eat in three days, so the surplus went down the block the same evening it was weighed — cucumbers by the bagful, tomatoes by the tray.
Coffee grounds and eggshells. That is the whole input list.
Nine seasons with no commercial fertilizer and no pesticide of any kind. Ridges raised every May so spring rain ran off instead of pooling at the roots.
No commercial fertilizer. No pesticides.
The garden was never about forcing production. Season after season, the same Pilsen soil was cleared, tilled, rested, shaped into ridges, and planted. No fertilizer, no pesticides. The only things that ever went into it were used coffee grounds and eggshells.
That is the whole input list, and it is worth being precise about what it means. Coffee grounds and eggshells are real amendments — they are not nothing. But nine seasons of production on 990 square feet came mostly from the soil, the ridges, the tilling, crop selection, steady tending, and years of knowing one specific piece of ground.
- COMMERCIAL FERTILIZER
- NONE
- PESTICIDES
- NONE
- HERBICIDES
- NONE
- AMENDMENTS
- COFFEE GROUNDS · EGGSHELLS
- CULTIVATED
- 2017—2025
Stated from Chandra's own record of the practice. The soil was never lab-tested and the plot was never certified organic.
One hundred square feet is enough to begin.
A tenth of this plot. A rented bed, a parkway strip, a back gangway that gets six hours of sun.
2026 is a break year. New ground in 2027.
THE INITIATIVE →THE PILSEN PLOT · 22 × 45 FT · 990 SQ FT