My Chicago Garden

A little late start, but we are on our way. See you in 8 days.

Base camp. Had dinner looking south into the ridge line over the meadow in the direction of our trip. Proving a good plan to acclimatize for a day as I have a headache. Very nice tent cabin to start the trip. Excellent cell coverage in the meadow area but Im sceptical in the back country. Tomorrow’s post before we leave might be the last post until we get back.

At the permit station to pick up our wilderness permit. Then off to the lodge and dinner.

Gear is packed and ready to go. Ill be trying to update the blog with at least one picture each day off my cell phone, if we have cell service in the back country. I doubt it…but you never know.

I needed to start planning to put the garden to bed for a few weeks while we go on vacation. So today was as good a day as any to walk around and do a tour and start cleaning up before we leave on friday.

	The north side of the driveway we planted last year is going like gang busters.
	The potatoe bed is doing fine. If you look closely you can see the start of flowering. According to some research, two or three weeks after the flowers have died off I can start harvesting “new” potatoes.
	I thought the watermelon and pumpkin plants were dead after the painters stepped all over them but they are coming back now.
	This is a look at the main garden from the garage. You can see the viburnum screening hedge on the right, the cabbage under the bug netting and the gigantic sunflowers in the background. I’ve added a garden fence to keep the local bunnies out.
	In the front are the carrots. In the back the three tomatoe plants. And up the trellis are the peas. The green mass in the middle are beans.
	This bed had the lettuce and the several failed attempts at cauliflower, spinach and cucumbers. I had planted way too much lettuce and it was going to bolt before we got back from vacation so I cleared the entire bed and put them in the compost pile. A new flush of seeds will go in here to sprout while we are away on vacation.
	I don’t know what variety of cabbage these are as they were a spur of the moment purchase from Menard’s but holy cow. They turned into monsters. The bug netting has really helped this year. A couple blemishes but not much.
	The garlic is going nicely…I think. It may be time for harvest when we get back from vacation. I’m noticing more and more brown every day.
	A beautiful flush of sunflowers have started. Here is one of them bursting out for the sun.
	I’m 6′-2″ and these sunflowers are at least 8 foot or more…and still growing. They are multi-headed as well.
	I ran out of room in my compost bin and had to dump the cabbage and some of the other lettuce to the side. Oh yeah…next door neighbors put in a brand new fence along the back side. Very nice. I helped with my chain saw to get the volunteer trees down before they started.
	The borage plants are as big as last year. The bee’s are going nuts for them. I’ve seen bumble bees and honey bees (probably our neighbors hive) all sharing the same plant. You can kind of see one up under the flower.
	The first cabbage harvest of the year. And it was a whopper. 5 lbs!!
	This is two harvests of beans about a week apart. They average 2 lbs a harvest. All from a 3 x 3 foot square area.
	I’ve been harvesting peas for snacks every couple days. This is about how many I get each time. Enough to fill a salad or cereal bowl full. Teagan and I munch them for snacks. These might go in the freezer though.
	The first cucumber of the harvest. I didn’t even know he was there until I took out the lettuce. He had dropped down on the vine and was hiding. He was given to my sister-in-law as I only use cucumbers for bread-n-butter pickles and you can’t do much with just one.