Grow Your Own Food begins for me

I've been planting some seeds in my backyard and eating any food that happens to grow for a few years now. I want to take it to the next level. I want to plan on eating certain things I grow. I want to learn form others doing the same thing, and laugh and rant with you too!

I'm Cathy Theys, I live in Oak Park, Illinois, with my darling husband, DH, and my three kids. In the summer of 2009 A is 7 years old, V is 5 and AR is 2. I'm pretty sure the kids think the garden is cool, and they even "help" and plant their own plants. We have a big lot in Oak Park, a double lot, but it is still a small yard; the house, garage and parking spaces sit on 50' by 150'; grass and garden make up what is left over. The front yard is being transformed from grass to flowers a little bit every year, and DH helped me get a proper space dug up and set aside for food this year that is coming to a close.

I'm ready to learn and start planning for next year and I hope you will join me. No experience necessary, I barely have any!

I've set up a couple yahoo groups, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gyof-chicagoland is for those in the Chicago, Oak Park, Forest Park, Berwyn, River Forest and other suburbs who say, "Yeah, I want to grow my own food." and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gyof-mods is a group for people who want to set up and moderate their own local GYOF, Grow Your Own Food, yahoo groups.

And, I've started using the #gyof tag on twitter: http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23gyof Save the #gyof search there, or follow me as I try and grow my own food, veggies and fruit, in my city garden: ctheys http://twitter.com/ctheys But you'll get my posts on non-gyof topics too if you follow me, so be careful. *grin*