61+ Degrees F Jan 29 2013 Chicago

It's 61 degrees currently, with 87% humidity. There's a chance we'll hit 67 this afternoon and get as much as three inches of rain.

The bizarre just keeps on coming.

Never in my life have I talked about weather as a matter of course. But when was weather like this? We broke a record today at 6:45 a.m., hitting 60 degrees. I awoke at 3 this morning to the sound of a brief driving rain (or, I thought wryly in my half-sleep, maybe given weather extremes it's raining frogs like in Magnolia).

Remember these, planted in the unheated greenhouse and covered with plastic on Jan 9, another extra-warm winter day? Well they sprouted.

I set them all out to get a good rain pounding, the action of the water spurring more to germinate. Then they'll return to the greenhouse in their plastic bags. It's all an experiment.

Downstairs, we uncovered the raised bed to find the rats had done a nice job aerating the soil, flipping all the cool-weather greens roots-up to die. I'd want to live under that plastic too if I were them, not to mention the organic buffet. Art still has his trap line set up around the yard, with cameras trained on the important parts. Maybe he should add a couple traps here.

With the coming rain I thought I'd try broadcasting some seed on top of that nicely roughed up terrain, with a layer of straw to follow tomorrow. Here's what I sowed.

Thursday's low is supposed to be 6 degrees F. That's closer to a real Chi winter. All bets are off on the gardening front though. Wondering if Bruce and I should start seedlings earlier for spring planting. Stay tuned.

Hot May in Chicago: Spring Greens Report

Heat changes everything about spring growing. When nice steady cool temps are replaced by spikes in the 90s, cool-weather greens wilt and sag unhappily and flavor starts to distort. These Burpee organic lettuces were stunning though.

Check out this chart of highs and lows in Chicago for May 2012. Yikes. We broke a record on Memorial Day with 97 degrees and had many more days far hotter than normal. Unsettling.

Amish Snap Peas from Seed Savers Exchange 

Got these seeds germinating in the unheated greenhouse in February. The nighttime cold/daytime greenhouse heat of trapped sun cracked 'em right open. We've had a beautiful harvest.

Braising greens (Hudson Valley Seed Library)

gone to seed

Aztec Spinach

First year for this beautiful leaf with a nutty flavor. Bruce was over for a salad last week and swore it was lambs quarters. They have a lot in common. Plus, does this doesn't look anything like...

...this photo of the seeds I ordered?

Perpetual spinach-chard

This yummy green gets leathery when the weather gets hot, but it's a spring standby at our house. Here's what Bountiful Gardens says:

Description: (1869) Rare, fine old European strain of Swiss Chard. Smaller smooth dark-green leaves, small mid-ribs. Frost and bolt resistant, needs water in a dry spell. We saw whole fields under cultivation in England.

Agretti 

Officially one of my favorite greens. This year we're eating, not growing seeds, and does this ever pick nicely. Pinching off delectable end bits triggers a double branch to form. 

These chrysanthemum greens taste like an evergreen tree smells,

and they're budding up to white flowers. They make any salad sparkle.

Mmm. With the hot temps my cutting board

won't be filled with these much longer.

 

Malabar Spinach 

Just started eating these substantial spinach-y leaves (thanks to Debbie who swapped me some seeds). They've been languishing on the roof in their little cups. Today I pulled bolted greens out of three yellow SIPs, removed the fertilizer, and planted these. Cornell says:

The leaves from this heat-loving vine have a mild flavor and are used like spinach in salads and cooking. Extremely frost-sensitive. It creeps when temperatures are cool, but leaps when the mercury hits 90 F.

 

We hope the Malabar leaps up our arched trellis this summer...

Near 80 Degrees F in Chicago March 14, 2012?

This 7-day forecast for Chicago freaks me out, I said to Art yesterday. A whole lot of very warm highs and now-very-low lows. Those temps are about a month early.

And he said: You're complaining about an extended growing season?

Hmmm. He had a point.

Hurry hurry off to Bruce's to pick up the 3-inch seedlings (above) he's been tending under lights. An almost-too-warm-for-cool-weather-greens world awaits them. I put them in front of the open windows in south sun to buck up a little. 


Today, on a day that feels like May, I recharged an Earthbox from last year, removing the top layer of potting mix and fertilizer and refreshing both....


...in order to plant the sprouted pea seeds I started in some compost Feb 20 (check out those healthy roots).

 

People always ask what fertilizer we use

for spring plantings. This one.

In our second adopted Earthbox, lettuces.

Here they are, looking a little droopy in the hot sun, but they should perk up.

Are we ready for this year's weather? Who knows where's it's heading. Art screwed in the windbreaks on the cool-weather greens run to guard against infant-greens ravaging spring winds. Just in case.

Lunch break:

salad from the raised bed (top picture)

Taken out of context, 78 degrees on the roof made for a beautiful day.

Winter Garden Trial

Today it was 25 degrees in Chicago. We expect to have a severe winter storm with 6" to 8" inches of snow by midnight. Yesterday it was 50 degrees and you wouldn't have known it was Jan 11th. Either way, our winter garden is still showing signs of life. Here's proof that you CAN grow a winter garden in Chicago. Growing anything makes me happy no matter what season it is.

Under the low tunnels the greens are doing well. I have to admit I'm a little nervous about the unusual amount of heavy snow we are going to get tonight, hoping the weight of the wet snow won't bring down the low tunnels.

Fancy red lettuce and spinach

Mache

Mustard Greens

Lactino Kale

Not everything faired as well... but that's ok. After-all, I have to remind myself that it's a winter garden trial.

The beginnings of a winter garden.
A different time. Another season.
October 23, 2011

Growing Cool-Weather Greens Indoors

In Chicago, growing anything during the cold winter months makes us happy. Previous years we've experimented, with good success, in growing cool-weather greens upstairs in full-south light with auxiliary lights over the plants. One year we tried it without the lights. 

This year, we're going to grow again without auxiliary electricity. We're using EEZY-GRO sub-irrigated pots we got at Menard's, a big-box store. Plants don't drink much in winter, growing slowly with no need for a large water reservoir.

The greens--tatsoi, kale, mustard, all the usual suspects--have a nice start. Somehow these little ones always taste sweetest.

A Low Tunnel for Greens in Fall-Winter-Spring

The next logical step for the raised bed Art built for my birthday in spring 2011 was to structure a low tunnel over it so cool-weather greens can grow in winter...or at least thrive longer in fall and start earlier in spring.

We looked to Johnny's Seeds for the bits we'd need. First, a bender to turn conduit into hoops-- worthwhile, easy to use, and eminently shareable with your neighbors.

Art holds up hoops so I can visualize where we'll position them. Then he secures them. I need to be able to get inside to clip greens.

You can see the sun on that nice southern brick wall below, our neighbor's building. All credit to Eliot Coleman and his Four Season Harvest, which opened our eyes...

Eliot Coleman introduces the surprising fact that most of the United States has more winter sunshine than the south of France. He shows how North American gardeners can successfully use that sun to raise a wide variety of traditional winter vegetables in backyard cold frames and plastic covered tunnel greenhouses without supplementary heat.

Now for the Agribon, which we laid out on the deck to cut and then tossed over the arches.

We used these Johnny's snap clamps to attach the fabric to a long run of conduit to weigh down the edges.

The conduit concept worked well, and I hope to be able to lift the edge as a single unit when I want to get in there or give the plants some air.

The clamps also keep the fabric taut on the hoops, to hold snow.

I probably wouldn't purchase these plastic clamps again. In the cold weather they're difficult to manage and apply...even in not-so-cold weather they were a pain. Got to be an easier way.

First Chicago snow (late for us)

Dec 8-9, before I got the plastic on

 

Looks cozy in there

Art decided to make a low tunnel on the roof

for storing buckets in winter.

It might also come in handy this spring for starting seedlings.