My Chicago Garden

Time to break out the frost protection and/or take your last harvest.  If it doesn’t frost tonight, it will tomorrow.  And there’s a possibility of a hard freeze and snow at that!

I took the opportunity between 40mph wind gusts to run out and do my last harvest of beans and green tomatoes. Wind chill was down to 35F and I was happy to return to the roaring fire in the house. Last year we had a few days of cold, then it went back up to warm, and then back down to cold, etc…etc.  This year it looks like Winter is going to cold crash on us. I don’t mind, since Fall and Winter are my favorite times of year…but I know I’m the minority.

Just last weekend Sierra and I planted the garlic and on Sunday we took the girls to a for-pay fishing pond near us.  Seems a little strange to have gone fishing 7 days ago, picking and eating fresh green beans and seeing the first dusting of snow..all in a span of 10 days.

Much like the past 5 months, the weather in the Chicago area has been…shall we sale…abnormal. More rain than normal and below average temperatures made for a fabulous growing season for the home gardener. But all good things must come to an end. This growing season has been holding on for much longer than I had expected. I’ve had a full second harvest of late season beans and I’m a few days away from a full first harvest of late season peas. But when is that killing frost going to hit? We’re coming close to breaking another record this year.  The record for the last frost date is November 1st.  That’s only 13 days away.  The current long term forecasts are for near frost levels wednesday night, and another shot Sunday night.

I got my cold frame out of storage several weeks ago and I’ve had to battle 107 degree temperatures in the cold frame due to the unseasonably warm temperatures. I was able to rig together a fan and some small solar panels I had laying around that should keep temperatures moderated in the future. I’ve also figured out what was causing the significant temperature differences between my weather station and the cold frame.  Last year my cold frame was running 5 to 6 degrees colder than ambient temperature outside during the over night hours.  I dropped an email to the mailing list for friends of the meteorology department at the College of DuPage and got a great discussions back on what was causing the readings to be off. It was in fact 5 to 6 degrees colder in my frame for several reasons.  Anyway, I resolved that by using plastic as a second thermal break between the box and the windows.  This traps a TON more heat inside the frame.  (See note above about 107 degrees)  I’ve got some baby cabbage plants I’m trying to take into december with me. We’ll see how they do when the snow starts falling.

For the past 2 years I’ve been spending roughly $8-$10 a day on lunch.  Sometimes less, sometimes more..but that’s about the average. I should know…I was on a budget

In conjunction with taking the train (see last post) I’ve started taking my lunch to work instead of buying.  I did some notepad calculations this morning and was astonished at the savings.

$0.75 - Nature Valley Chewy Trail Mix Bar
$0.25 - 3 slices of deli cheese
$0.25 - 3 slices of deli meat
$0.50 - Newtons Fruit Crisps
$0.50 - Crackers
$0.25 - Apple
$0.50 - Bag of Chips
free  - Water
————-
$3.00 for lunch per day

If we assume I ate on the cheap at Subway or some place like that, the total per day would be about $6.  So I’m saving about $3.00 per day.  Calculate that over 200 trips to the office each year and that’s $600 a year.

So I’m well on my way to getting that $100,000 to start a small holding. If I save the $2,000 a year I’m saving just by taking the train and packing a lunch I’m only uhmmm…..50 years away from having the farm. Dang it! Sometimes it’s just better not to look at the numbers over time and just be happy with knowing you saved a couple bucks.  I think I’m going to go eat my deli meat and cry in the lunch room.

For the past 2 years I’ve been commuting from Wheaton to the northern edge of Chicago proper in my 2001 Subaru Outback wagon.  My day job recently moved their facilities to downtown Chicago, about 4 blocks from Ogilvie Station.  I had been waiting for this move for some time, as it allows me to take the METRA from Wheaton to Downtown without too much hassle, actually without any hassle.

I just completed by 2nd round-trip and I have to say it has turned out to be pretty good. I do have one complaint though. The METRA doesn’t take credit cards.  They don’t mention that little bit of goodness on their website. Lucky for me I was carrying cash for lunch and was able to buy a single round-trip. They claim it’s because of the fees the card companies charge.  Actually…I’ll bet you it’s because the union opposes it due to the fact you could replace humans at each station with a vending machine. Though I have to say the lady at the College Station stop is very nice. Even after I floundered around with what to buy after she told me no credit cards and I gave her that dumb look of “you have got to be kidding me?”.

Why did I switch to public transport?  It has nothing to do with being a good steward of the environment, though that’s a nice side benefit.  Mainly because of the cost difference and I do not have to be the driver. As much as I like driving, it raises my blood pressure to deal with Chicago traffic.  I’d rather just sit, relax, and listen to a nice podcast or read a book. Oh…and on average it takes 15 to 30 minutes less travel time to use the train. Even with all the station stops.

A quick cost analysis…

Driving by car costs 3 gallons per round-trip @ $3.50 gallon = $10.5

Taking the train costs $18.30 for a “10 pack”. So that’s $3.66 per round trip

Total cost of REAL MONEY savings if I make 200 round trips each year? $1368  (car $2100 - train $732)

Before our company moved locations it was not practical to take public transit, so I know it is not for everyone. But if you have the opportunity, the ability and it is not too much of an inconvenience.  Why arn’t you?  Once again, moving to Wheaton is proving to be one of our best decisions.

We spent the last 3 days up in the Lake Geneva area of Wisconsin, just over the border from Illinois.  It’s a beautiful 1 1/2 hour drive from Wheaton, IL through some of the best farm country in the nation. (though not the most beautiful, that’s reserved to south west Wisconsin/north west Illinois/north east Iowa). We take the back roads just to look and drool at the farm land, hoping one day to purchase some of our own. Anybody have a spare $100,000 laying around?   

Before coming home we ate lunch at Popeye’s on Lake Geneva and walked along the lake. We decided, if the girls get tired of the water park in a few years we could switch over to doing some boating activities. We’ll see.  Oh…I wouldn’t recommend Popeye’s.  $16 for 6 fried shrimp, bad ice tea, a bland salad and a scoop of mashed potatoes. No seriously..I could still see the scoop marks from the ice cream scooper they used. I think we’ll find some other local place to try next year. We usually have good luck with local places.

However, the primary reason for the trip was for our yearly apple picking vacation up to Royal Oak Orchard.  We picked 1 bushel of Cortland, 1/2 bushel of Jonagored and 1/2 bushel of Jonafree for roughly 100lbs of apples. The Cortland, my favorite, were heavily picked over and looking back through my blog I noticed our last trip was the weekend earlier. This time we decided to go picking on a friday so we didn’t have to deal with the crowds and pay the weekend parking fee ($3). 

We picked by ourselves for nearly an hour in the southern orchard. Later in the day, I had the chance to talk to one of the workers, and he said the previous weekend was really busy.  They were expecting an even bigger crowd the day after we were there. He also said they run about 20 to 30 staff during the high season, but only maintain about 6-8 full time staff.

All said and done, the apples cost slightly under $1/lb. The local super markets are running specials on the commodity apples (macintosh, golden delicious, etc) for an average of $.79/lb right now, but any other time of year and a $1/lb would be a great price for these.  We also didn’t get the standard varieties you find in the store, so I figure they would be at least $1.50/lb.  Even if they were more expensive I’d pay.  I hate the store variety of apples. Usually mushy and without flavor. When I do purchase a store apple I go with the Granny Smith. 

Royal Oak Orchard also has a very small petting zoo and play area for kids.  There must have been 20 school buses that showed up around lunch time and we found out, by accident, that there is a school tour program for $6.50. It includes a short video on apples, bees, pollination, etc.  Our kids wanted to go into the teepee and watch a video so we said go ahead.  While we were outside the kids in the teepee exited the back and headed for the tractor drawn wagon.  The teachers and parents with the kids just assumed our kids were with them and shepherded them onto the wagon and gave them a small bag to pick apples. Our kids were happy to go along, so they did.  Melissa and I went running over and pulled our kids off the wagon. Once we found out that we could actually go, we purchased tickets and went on the tour.

We also picked up a couple pumpkins and had lunch before heading back to the hotel.

While we were in Lake Geneva we stayed at the Timber Ridge Lodge. It has an indoor water park that is perfect for our kids (5 and 3) and is the only reason we stay there.  The rooms are acceptable, the food passible, the staff grumpy and the building slightly run down although clean. It would probably get a 2 star rating, but the water park allows us to overlook a lot. We saved a couple bucks this year by utilizing the full kitchen in the room and eating our breakfast and one dinner in our room.  We’ll be going back for at least a few more years.

As I type this, Melissa has just finished up making apple ice cream. I also have three quarts of apples canned and ready for storage. Leaves probably 90lbs of apples to still deal with.  1/2 bushel is hanging up in the garage for long term storage. I’ve never done that before so we’ll see how that goes. Unfortunately I have to head out to California for 4 days for my day job. I hope they last long enough for me to get back and do something with them!