Haven’t updated this site in awhile and am behind on posting pics. I have been taking a timelapse of the front parkway since March 24 and put together a current cut for the Bucktown Garden Walk.
Blackhawks!
Garden Status
I’ve been too lazy to photograph and too lazy to garden so no pics, just status for future reference. Garden is basically all planted and about 10 days later than the latest I have ever been but it should be OK.
Front parkway seeded and reseeded. Cleome growing wild on street side. Catnip is very strong with seedlings in multiple areas all over front. A 3 cu ft. container of catnip growing wild on veranda. The objective for this garden is to have it reseed itself with little to no human intervention other than the occasional watering and weeding.
Planted 5 dahlias purchased at Aldis and all 5 have sprouted and are starting to get big. I didn’t know how big these plants get but they’re taking up a sizable area. Added two new boxes in front and in back side parkway. Moved container of chives from main roof into new front side parkway which should be easy to maintain and have some utility. That container was falling apart up there anyway and it reduces watering on the main roof. Yay.
All hot peppers planted in containers as well as 4 tomatoes. I had to buy tomato singles for $2 per because that’s all they seem to sell around here nowadays.
Lots of new garden construction. Tore down all caged positions from previous years and rebuilt them in a much simpler fashion. Only 8 positions this year, 4 of which are tomatoes, one Cleome. SE corner planters got a 6 pack of peppers and a 3 pack of peppers and 2 Cleome for bees and appearance.
Shouldn’t have left so much hose stuff outside but didn’t lose too much compared to previous years.
Used 20 cu. ft. of pine bark and 6 cu ft. mushroom compost and even with the reduction I’m somehow running out of potting mix with only 5 cu ft. of decent old stuff available that was pulled from main roof. Main roof has all new potting mix so that should last a couple of years. Not sure if I’ll downsize main roof again next year. Watering seems to be easy so maybe this is now at a good level.
Lots of new debris clumps with native plants but I’m considering cheating and seeding them this week and I might water them this year since there is so much less other plants to water up there now.
That is all for now … I hope to get pics up next time if I get motivated and the light is right. It’s kind of hard to photograph seeds sprouting however.
PS. Forgot. The raspberries are 6 feet high and have been on a timelapse since the beginning of march. I will timelapse them until they’re done in fall.
Tulips
Tulips are in bloom. I planted red and purple tulips last October in the front parkway from bags of 35 that were on sale at Home Depot.
14 packets of seeds from the Dollar store (American seed brand) were planted in front parkway. Catnip and raspberries are strong. Front parkway may take center stage again this year. Bought 20 cu.ft. of good pine bark and 5 cu.ft. of mushroom compost so all set for planting in the next few weeks. Might be able to skip a trip to Gesethemane this season.
Forsythia Blooms 4/13/2015
Forsythia bush is back from the dead. It did not bloom last year due to dust from road construction that seemed to have killed this 30+ year old bush. It spent all of last summer regrowing branches and all those newly regrown branches have bloomed and it looks like this bush may be back from the dead. Forsythias are the first bush to bloom around here in zone 5 Chicago.
Here’s another shot and past articles from 2011, 2012, and 2013. No pic was taken in 2014 because it didn’t bloom. In 2012 it bloomed on March 22 and in 2013 it didn’t bloom until April 28. Forsythia blooms are the official kick off for spring gardening projects. So here we go…
Note: The banner header of this Forsythia with Magnolias in the background was taken in 2012 when we had a very early Spring. The Magnolia isn’t blooming now and doesn’t always sync up with the Forsythias.
North Parkway in Blizzard
This is the north parkway planted Spring 1995 with Rose of Sharon bushes. Being on the north side it doesn’t get good sun but the bushes proliferated over the years and now provide for a maintenance free part of the garden.
In 1995 I raised this bed 3 inches using a dump truck full of good black top soil which help establish these bushes. This picture taken in the middle of our current 19″ blizzard right after I shoveled for the first time. Another 12″ of snow will have fallen after this was taken.
A New Year
A new year growing season is upon us and here’s how the veranda looks at the end of January. Not much snow. There’s a roof leak at the drain on SW corners (far left) that will need to be solved this Spring.
The north wall (upper right) pergola and planters were torn down and will be replaced by a new and more useful structure. I put that pergola up in 2004 and had planters sitting on the north wall. Because these planters were only 1 foot wide nothing seemed to grow right in them. There was some major contamination of the treated wood in the planter built only two years ago. I suspect either bird poop or squirrel urine.
The new structure will house all indoor plants and will have a sun shade to keep direct sunlight from burning them. It will be a 39″ x 86″ tabletop with a 6.5′ high cage for plant support and to keep them from blowing off the roof. I’ll start on this as soon as we get nice days again — perhaps in March. The just torn down pergola built in 2004 was started on March 17 — St. Patricks Day. Time is going by fast.
Haven’t had a post here in awhile. I did a lot of fall planting including two new trees in front parkway but I haven’t been motivated to photograph them or update this site. Hopefully this will be a good gardening year. I’m consolidating even more this year and maybe finally will try out a drip irrigation system as a test. All green roof installations require drip irrigation because no one will want to keep them watered.
Until then….
Grove of Zinnias
I know, enough with Zinnias already. Here’s an overview shot of quadrant 2 of front parkway. These Zinnias are four feet high and must compete with raspberry bushes for space making them grow bigger.
Bumblebee
A bumblebee visits a wild flower in front parkway.
Habenero Harvest
Habeneros are good this year. Even though the label on seedlings sold by Gethsemane said yellow habeneros, they always ripen to red for some reason. There was a time when they did sell habeneros that only turned yellow. This has been going on for quite a few years now.
Usually I complain about Gethsemane but their hab seedlings have been very vigorous this season. All habs still growing and a lot of green growth.
TL;DR The above pic is a 2 gallon bucket dump of habeneros harvested today. More to come.
Update: I’m not complaining about red habeneros. The red habs are hotter and more desirable than yellow habs in my opinion. Gethsemane used to differentiate between the two with their tags and now they only tag them as yellow. I’m happy they’re really red because that’s what I want. Will be back next year.
I may have been overcrowding habeneros in the past. Plants seem bigger with more habeneros because I allocated more cuft root space to each plant. I used to allocate 1 cuft/plant and now I’m up to 1.5 cuft/plant and the production is the same but with less plants. Therefore, the numbers of actual plants doesn’t matter as much as the total container size growing that type of plant. Next season I’ll experiment giving a habenero 2 cuft root space and see what happens.