My Chicago Garden

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 averages 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.

The Illinois extension has this to say about Cabbage Worms.

"It is almost impossible to raise cole crops in Illinois without controlling these pests."

Well I can tell you I agree with that statement.  My cabbage plants were decimated last year (my first year growing vegetables in IL). I decided to run a little cabbage trial in my garden this year.  I put out a crop of cabbage utilizing a row cover and another crop without row cover. Everything else was exactly the same.  I had been seeing minor damage on the broccoli and cabbage leaves but nothing major until this morning.  I came out this morning and the uncovered cabbage was completely destroyed. Nasty little bliters! The base of the leaves were full of a green’ish colored "poop" which could be the eggs of the cabbage looper and on the most damaged cabbage I found small yellow egg sacks on the under side. I don’t remember seeing any of the cabbage moths flying around so it might just be cabbage loopers. Time to get out my insect encyclopedia.

Oh yeah…the covered cabbage…as pretty as can be and not a single pin prick of damage. In fact the leaves could easily make a hat they are so big.

Anybody else have issues with these guys?

Over on the My Skinny Garden blog, Gina brought up the topic of big box stores, and in particular their return policy on live plants. Here was my response…..

Im a non-selective shopper [except under rare occasions where a particular store has made me particularly mad] , however I always give the local guy a try first. I’m willing to pay a couple extra bucks, even if they don’t have the best return policy. They almost always have the best service.

As for plants, I guess I have a different philosophy. Plant’s are living things, and they die for any of a number of good reasons. Most of them having to do with my actions. If only a couple died, that’s pretty good in my book and I wouldn’t even pull them out to take them back to HD. In fact I’ve probably killed $20 worth of plants already this year and all of them went into the compost pile instead of back to the store. I figure HD is trying their best to give me a good product and I tried my best to keep them alive, but stuff happens and it’s unfair to expect them to take the loss.

Different strokes for different folks I guess I know some of my family members will take an instore item that is scratched up to the counter and ask for a discount when there is nothing wrong with the item and it will get scratched as soon as they put it in the car. Unfair if you ask me.

One thing I will not tolerate from a local shop though is the complaining about being put out of business by the big guys. That’s a bunch of hog wash in 99% of cases. What really happened is they refused to change their business and died, like anybody else who has done that.

Case in point…when I lived in KY there was a local hardware store. I tried at least 15 times to purchase items from them, but their hours were 8am to 4pm M-F. That’s nearly impossible for anyone but contractors. And where do you think contractors shop? The discount stores…duh. They then complained in the newspaper about how the big box stores were putting a 100 year old hardware store out of business. Total crap. Had they changed their hours to cover weekends and evenings and stocked retail items instead of commercial they could have stayed in business. But they refused. And they died. No loss in my opinion

First thing to be harvested this year is something new for me. Lettuce was on the menu for dinner tonight! Our family doesn’t eat much salad at home, yet we like eating salad when going out for dinner. Doesn’t make much sense, but we do. I took some cuttings from the various lettuce (still in baby stage) and made a salad of lettuce, feta cheese and dried cranberries in a strawberry balsamic vinaigrette. Very yummy. The rest of the garden is doing well except for the second set of cucumbers I’ve planted out. The first set died due to a later than average frost and this replacement set are also probably damaged beyond recovery from the later winter/early spring low temperatures. I’m having to recover the potatoes with dirt practically every day. I’ll have to switch to straw here in about a week as they will have out grown the “hilling” of dirt available.

A few months ago I saw what to me was a new soaker hose system and it had been tempting me ever since late winter when I saw it on the shelves.  Only problem was it was basically a very thin soaker hose and a 1/2" distribution tube and they wanted $38 for it.  I shook my head and told myself that only a moron would pay $38 for two hoses and some plastic pieces (Amazon for $36).  Only thing was is that I went back and looked at it EVERY time we went to Menards, which is practically every weekend, and it looked like nobody was touching them. 

A few days ago I saw a sign that had them down to $10.  I did a double take and thought 75% price drop?!?! No way! I couldn’t pass it up and grabbed 4 of the 6 boxes that were still on the shelf.  See…I’ve done this before and purchased only one of an item and then come to find out I can’t find them anymore.  Like my Ultimato Tomatoe trellis system.  Curse you Lowes for not stocking them anymore!  When I got to the checkout they rang up as $8 each. I about fainted.

Tonight I just finished installing the first one and I can tell you it’s the best soaker system I’ve ever used.  I was out in the garden pulling out my large soaker hose system and replacing it with these. I recommend anybody with a couple extra bucks hit their local Menards and snatch up a couple.  You are looking for a purplish box labeled  Orbit Vegetable Garden Soaker System (Part #67562). It may say "DripMaster" on it somewhere.  It was originally outdoors in the garden section near the edging but I found them this time in the seasonal area near the hoses and hose accessories.

No seriously. Go now. If I didn’t already have 4 and only 3 vegetables beds I’d go back for the last two. Actually, if they still have them when I go back this weekend I’ll probably buy the rest. So if you live near Cold Springs/West Chicago nevermind…the system is horrible and a complete waste of money. What you need is a large bird bath..yeah that’s it!