Dawn Redwood

Posted on July 13, 2015 by

A Dawn Redwood grows amongst Cleome and sunflowers in the front parkway under mid day light. I bought this tree for $10 at Aldis and it spent its first year as an inside plant. Being a redwood I thought it couldn’t survive Chicago’s zone 5 climate but upon further reading the tag this wasn’t exactly like the redwoods you find around San Francisco but one that can survive our climate. It is doing much better outside than it did inside.

According to the tag this tree can grow to 75 feet tall which will make for a nice replacement for the tree they chopped down to put in a stop sign.

Raspberry Cage

Posted on July 13, 2015 by

North front parkway raspberry cage in sunset light on July 3, 2015. The sun is quite far to the north at this time of year. This cage was built this Spring to support raspberry bushes. It will be moved 2 feet north at the end of this season. Two feet of raspberry bushes need to be cleared in that quadrant.

These cages keep the raspberry bushes growing straight up and not onto the sidewalk or street. They use basic post and beam construction with 2x2s from 2x4s ripped in half and painted. The beams all connect using single screws so angle braces must be used to maintain a proper square and support vertical and horizontal loads. None of these cages are tied into the ground.

Front Parkway Timelapse

Posted on July 9, 2015 by

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.

Tulips

Posted on May 5, 2015 by

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

Posted on April 14, 2015 by

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

Posted on February 8, 2015 by

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.

More Zinnias

Posted on August 28, 2014 by

Here’s another shot of Zinnias in bloom on the front parkway. For some reason a butterfly hammed it up for the camera.

Tomato update: Harvested around 40 pounds of tomatoes on main roof. All plants almost dead. Habeneros need harvesting.

Front Parkway in Mid Afternoon Sun

Posted on August 27, 2014 by

I divided the front parkway into 4 foot sections. This is the nothernmost 6 foot section that was planted with Cleome, Zinnias, and general wildflowers. The parkway tomato featured below also grows into this section. A few tree seedlings are growing and I hope this will be the location of one of the two or more trees that will grow to full size in the next 10 – 20 years. Not sure yet whether to plant a sapling or let the seedlings grow to full size.

Tomato update: Lots of tomatoes on Main Roof but all the plants are dead or dying. Don’t think they’ll make it to September. I have downsized next year’s crop to 6 tomatoes and 5 non-tomatoes requiring only 3 9cuft containers. Eight tomato plants generate too many to harvest. Plan to put them out for the neighbors to take.

Front Parkway Tomato

Posted on August 10, 2014 by

This tomato in front parkway grew wild from a seed and didn’t achieve seedling status until late June and now it’s falling over its hoop cage.

Update Main Roof Tomatoes: No pics of main roof tomatoes but status needs to be updated. Here is the current caged layout since I haven’t documented that yet for this year:

OTTOTTOTOOTOTTO

O = Other, T=Tomato, numbered left to right one to fifteen, west to east.

The above chart is important since there are some problems but overall the crop looks like they will produce. BER tomatoes are still coming out. Some small Celebrity tomatoes without BER harvested 4 days ago.

Leaves on tomato in caged position 2 are yellowing badly but not affecting T in caged position 3 which is of a different type. Caged position 1 is western most. Ts in Caged positions 5 and 6, both Brandywines, doing the best and are the tallest ever. They both share a new 9 cu.ft. container built this spring. Ts on eastern end, caged positions 13 and 14 not doing well but they’re in the old 3 cu.ft. containers. Difference in growth between the two container types is striking.

Next season all tomatoes will share a 9 cu.ft. container placing same types together as they seem to grow better with their own kind. Caged positions 1-4 will be moved to NE corner.main roof which will have 1 9 cu.ft. and 2 3 cu.ft. containers. There might be some bacteria problem at the west end of the roof. The skinny eggplant in caged position 1, sharing a 9 cu.ft. with T in caged position 2 is doing very well. Eggplants never seem to have problems however.

All habeneros look big this year except the ones getting crowded out by their unruly container companion. More on this later ….

Edit: Forgot to mention that the plant behind the tomato is zoom out shot of the weed mentioned in the previous article. This plant never seemed to fully flower out even though it was always on the verge of blooming.

Some people call this a weed

Posted on August 2, 2014 by

Some people call this a weed. Not sure the name of this plant but it grows wild in untended areas and thus, could be considered a weed. This picture shows it about to bloom. I’ll post a panned out view when it fully blooms to show its leaves and give a better perspective because it grows around here everywhere. Since the plant seems to thrive in densely packed clay that was used as fill in the new front parkway area I let these grow out to see what they look like. There is nothing wrong with keeping weeds that flower out into something. Who knows: maybe this weed can be turned into a medicine? The front parkway has several variety of weeds growing out to their full potential. They provide contrast to the “wildflowers” I planted from seed packets. These weeds are the true wildflowers. There are certain classes of invasive weeds I pull like chickweed; weeds that creep along and choke other plants. Weeds that stay to themselves I let be unless they’re in the way of something else.

Tomato update: Picked first tomato on main roof August 1 with a little Blossom End Rot (BER). There have been lots of little BER throwaways but they are becoming less so hopefully a good crop will come soon. No sign of mites; perhaps because there has been so much heavy rain. Mites seem to thrive in dry environment. Some browning of leaves on sucker branches which I have been cropping. Nothing bad so far. Fingers crossed and updated pics are forthcoming.