My Chicago Garden

Well the NWS forecast was off by at least 10 degrees maybe even 20.  We had what is called a hard freeze (see below) this morning, not a first frost.  The remaining tomato and pea plants are showing signs of damage even though I covered them with a plastic tarp. And even the tomatoes in the cold frame are showing leaf damage on the leaves closest to the glass.

I don’t how how cold it got exactly as I lost my outdoor weather station and cold frame weather station during the night. I don’t know why.  It could be because of the batteries I installed (rechargeable). They may not function in the cold. If they drop out tonight again then I’m positive it’s the batteries.  Things fixed themselves about 10am in the morning when the temperature got back above 45.

Here’s a picture of the garden this morning around 730am. You can see the remaining frost on the garden.

The cold frame isn’t doing squat to protect the plants inside except keeping the humidity high. The temperature is the same inside as outside when the sun goes down. There must be too much air leakage around the window frames and air vent. I’ll have to look into that soon. Too late to do anything now.

 October 28th is the first frost for 2007. And man was it a wicked one to start the winter.

Hard Freeze
A term to describe temperatures that drop below 32° F and remain there for several hours, typically killing all vegetation.

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 17:18:44

FROST EXPECTED ACROSS NORTHERN ILLINOIS TONIGHT…

.STRONG HIGH PRESSURE WILL MOVE ACROSS THE AREA TONIGHT. UNDER
GENERALLY CLEAR SKIES WITH LIGHT WINDS…LOW TEMPERATURES WILL
FALL INTO THE LOWER 30S. FROST IS EXPECTED OVER MUCH OF THE
REGION…WITH WIDESPREAD FROST OVER NORTHWEST ILLINOIS.

ILZ006-013-014-022-023-032-033-039-280345-
/O.NEW.KLOT.FR.Y.0005.071028T0600Z-071028T1300Z/
LAKE ILLINOIS-DUPAGE-COOK-WILL-KANKAKEE-LIVINGSTON-IROQUOIS-FORD-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF…WAUKEGAN…CHICAGO…JOLIET…
KANKAKEE…PONTIAC…WATSEKA…PAXTON
244 PM CDT SAT OCT 27 2007

…FROST ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM TO 8 AM CDT SUNDAY…

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN CHICAGO HAS ISSUED A FROST
ADVISORY…WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM TO 8 AM CDT SUNDAY.

LOW TEMPERATURES WILL FALL INTO THE LOWER TO MIDDLE 30S BY SUNDAY
MORNING…ALLOWING AREAS OF FROST TO FORM. AREAS NEAR LAKE
MICHIGAN AS WELL AS IN AND NEAR DOWNTOWN CHICAGO WILL REMAIN WARM
ENOUGH TO PREVENT FROST FROM FORMING.

A FROST ADVISORY MEANS THAT FROST IS POSSIBLE. SENSITIVE OUTDOOR
PLANTS MAY BE KILLED IF LEFT UNCOVERED.

$$
Issuing Weather Forecast Office Homepage

Eric over on gardenfork.tv dropped me an email to tell me he has started a community website for gardenfork and realworldgreen (his other show).  If you like the show head over, signup and participate. The url is http://thegreenhouse.ning.com/

Those of us in the western suburbs of Chicago better prepare for the first frost of the season.  NWS is forecasting 35F this Saturday.  If it doesn’t hit on Saturday night, we should be good for another few days as the temp is expected to rise again.

I got the cold frame completed this weekend.  I had to buy about $50 more of material because of mistakes I made during construction. I wasn’t working from a plan so I knew I ran the risk of things not lining up just right.  I also added two handles on either end for easier lifting.

As you can see in the picture to the left that I kept the two tomato plants running across the ground. Under the straw is a patch of garlic I’m going to try and over-winter.

In the picture to the right you can see the self opening vent system that I heard about from Eric over at gardenfork.tv. I have another vent that I thought about installing in the other wall to create a cross-draw situation but I’m concerned about the heat loss in the winter so I’m leaving it out for now.  I also found out that the coldframe is too far from my wireless weather station base station so I can’t record temperature without a repeater. I went ahead and picked one up from Ambient Weather for $25.

The 7 day forecast is calling for 36F on friday night.  Looks like that will be our next opportunity for first frost of the season.

We also used the remaining apples from our U-Pick trip, from a few weekends ago, to make an apple pie and some apple ice cream. Yum!

Given that I have had so little time to actually do anything in my garden, I took the last few minutes of my day before I crash into my bed and checked out the local blogs (see links on the bottom right of the page) and found a great post over on Rosemarie’s garden blog.  She is taking some classes over at the Morton Arboretum for home gardeners. I had no idea they had such a thing.  This looks like it could be an alternative to the heavily involved master gardener program. I just don’t have the time for all the public service requirements for the master gardener program…but I could probably find some time for a few night and weekend classes in the future.

I’m so optimistic about my available time in the future. I don’t even have time to sit down on my couch and I’m thinking about taking night classes.  I’m basically in the same boat as Gina. She mentioned today on her blog how she has zero time for gardening right now.  You’d think with a so called bad economy I’d be loafing around the house with nothing to do.  I haven’t worked this hard at my day job in my entire life.