My Chicago Garden

I have limited space in my garden and have decided to not grow garlic to save about 1/8 of the garden space. I also decided not to grow tomatoes in the raised beds since they take up so much space too. Probably another 1/8 of the garden. Both decisions recovered about 1/4 of the [...]

We just finished our annual U-Pick apple trip to Southern Wisconsin. My younger sister Summer came for the trip. We picked 1/2 bushel of Cortland (my favorite), 1/2 bushel of Fuji, 1/2 bushel of Jonagored and a 1/2 bushel of Liberty.

We spent our 3 days and 2 nights at the Timber Ridge Lodge [...]

The graphic says it all. *sigh*

First chance of frost, no scratch that…SNOW!!…will be this weekend, specifically late saturday evening/early sunday morning. Not sure why I’m surprised really. It’s right on the average first frost date of October 15 +/- a few days.

Harvest any late season crops Saturday morning or they’ll probably be [...]

Used about 5 pints to make 1 quart of crushed raspberries. Added 6 1/2 cups of sugar and a pouch of pectin. Looks like I’ll need to go purchase some new glass ware next year, I seem to only have odds and ends left.  The rest went into the freezer. We learned a cool [...]

We took our yearly Raspberry U-Pick trip to Plow Creek Farm about 2 hours SW of Chicago. We picked 10 pints worth ($2.50/p). I typically make jam/preserves out of most of it…but we save a couple frozen ziploc bags full for putting on icecream. Apple picking in a few weeks! Yeah! Fall is my [...]