Garlic

This is the beginning of garlic season.  I planted the garlic back in October of last year to grow over the winter and into the spring.  Around July, some of the bulbs are ready to be pulled.  Unlike most of the things I grow, garlic will store for a long time.  I pull about 5 to 10 garlic bulbs a week, they cure in a cool, dry spot and then go into the kitchen.  All of this garlic should last until next year when the cycle repeats.  The only really trick is to be careful pulling the garlic out of the ground.  I try to break up the dirt around the garlic and then pull the bulb out of the ground.  You don’t want to get too close to the garlic because if you break the outer covering, the garlic won’t store very long.

Garlic can stay in the ground until early September.  It probably won’t grow too much bigger but it will allow me to keep it just a little longer through the winter.  If you wait too long, the bulbs will start to send up shoots and regrow.  This past winter I accidentially lost some garlic cloves (likely fell off the bulb?) and this spring there were garlic plants popping up in places I didn’t plant them.  I guess that shows you just how easy it is to grow garlic.

Greasy Grits Beans

I’ve been worried about my beans — well, the plants haven’t been growing beans yet.  Today that changed.  In the third picture above is a close up of a bean just beginning to grow.  There are many, many beans growing right now.  Many.  I’m quickly going to have to figure out the proper way to dry and store beans.  I’m guessing they’ll all mature at about the same time.  Other than setup the trellis, the beans have maintained themselves so far.  I planted the plants 3 inches apart, so as they’ve grown, they’ve crowded out any weeds.  In the next 10 to 14 days, I should have a bean or two to try.  These are Greasy Grits Beans… so picture a standard green bean that is a puple brown red color with a shiny cover (hence greasy).

Green Peppers

The peppers have struggled all season long as they thrive in 90 degree weather and we just haven’t had enough of it (off the top of my head, I can only think of two 90+ degree days).  Just like the beans, the peppers also have started to grow.  The peppers will take a bit of time to fully grow into a green pepper and the 70 degree days this week aren’t going to help them.  I’ve specifically laid some extra fertilizer down in the hopes that I can help these guys grow.

Ground Cherries

I’m going to write an entire post on the ground cherries, so look for that soon.

Tomatoes

They are looking great!  The sunburst (little cherry-type orange tomatoes), roma (long skinny), green zebra (green striped), and others all look great.  There seems to be a little compression between the maturity dates this year.  They are suppose to be spread out among 5 weeks to pace out the number of tomatoes I’ll harvest.  It looks like the early varieties are running a little late and the mid-summer and late varieties are running a little early.  Just means that I’ll have many more to eat.  I’ve tried to take some real close up pictures of the tomatoes to give a good idea what they all look like and where they are in their maturity.

Cucumbers, Pumpkins, and Watermelons

Based on the pictures, you can clearly tell that all three plants are related.  The pumpkin plant is starting to go crazy.  This is very typical.  A pumpkin patch is a really easy thing to grow.  Lay down some seeds and a patch will be created.  I’m trying to grow the pumpkin up a trellis.  It’s a novel idea, but when a 10 pound pumpkin starts to grow, it’s going to pull the trellis down.  I just don’t have the room right now for a full pumpkin patch.  I hope it will grow up for a little bit which will give me time to harvest the other plants in that plot.  Otherwise, they are all growing strong.  I’m thinking cucumbers will be ready around August 1.

Lettuces

I planted a nice selection of lettuces — mizuna, rocky top, and arugula.  I had to pick a shadier part of the garden to plant it in as lettuces do not like the super hot heat of July and August.  Of course, we really don’t have that kind of heat right now.  With each of these lettuces, I cut a little bit each week so I end up with baby lettuce, “sandwich” lettuce (the size leaf perfect for putting between two pieces of bread), and eventually full salad lettuce.  The lettuces took forever to start to sprout but once they did, they were off.

Sunflowers

I planted an unused section of the garden next to the compost bin with sunflowers.  It’s a little late to be starting sunflowers (they’ll probably reach full height just before the first frost) but they’ll add some color to the garden and encourage more bees to hang around.

Related articles:

1. On The Farm – July 5, 2009
2. On the Farm, June 6, 2009
3. On the Farm, June 12, 2009

Peas

This is it!  Pea season is officially over.  I pulled a number of peas off the vines today.  They taste great.  I got about 5 peas for each plant.  No fertilizer, just weeding and watering.

Cilantro

The cilantro bolted!  See the pictures of the pretty white “flowers” — that’s cilantro which went to seed.  I grew Slo-Bolt Cilantro.  So much for slow bolting.  Actually, it has been growing since the last frost.  It’s also from seeds that overwintered in that bed.

Tomatoes

Tomato season is almost here!  The first early tomatoes have started to fruit.  They are only a half inch in diameter.  In another 2 weeks, we should have some cherry tomatoes.

Lettuces

The lettuce looks great.  The Rocky Top is a strong grower.  The European Mesculan was a bust.  I cleared out the cilantro bed and planted arugula, salad greens, and mizuna.  In another 3 weeks, I’ll have more greens than I can deal with.

Cucumbers and Watermelon

Both went in the ground two weeks ago and the seedlings look great.  I’m going to try to grow these two up on stakes and trellis in the hopes of growing more in a smaller area.  I’ve never done it like this, so we’ll see what happens.

Chard

The chard which got water logged last week came back under the hot, hot sun.  It doesn’t like too much sun, but due to the flood of water, it’s doing ok.

Clean Up!

It’s not all growing.  Today was a big clean up day.  Planted sunflower seeds in an area next to the compost bin and cleaned up some of the beds.  In the next few weeks, I’ll have more clean up as the pea plants come out and something new comes in.

Related articles:

1. On the Farm, June 19, 2009
2. On the Farm, June 6, 2009
3. On the Farm, June 12, 2009

If you follow @GreenCityMarket on Twitter, you were notified that Cannon Drive was closed this morning for the Wrigley “Start Early Run” Race.  Walking through Lincoln Park, I was caught up in the action.

Caught at the Wrigley "Start Early Run" Race on the way to the market.

Sometimes you have to stop and smell the flowers.  In my case, I stopped to photograph ducks in the North Pond of Lincoln Park.  I walked all the way up to the edge the pond — about 2 feet from the ducks — and they just sat their while I took a picture.

Ducks of the North Pond, April 2009

Sorry about the side track, back to the market.  Luckily for us, Growing Power is able to start their vegetables in a greenhouse or cold frame (I should have asked) so they have a variety of greens ready to eat today.  I picked up both the arugula and salad greens.

Salad Greens and Arugula from Growing Power at the Green City Market

It’s rare to get scallions this early and they really smelled good (and strong — my entire bag smelled like scallions.  I also picked up mint and sorrel leaves from Nichols Farm, both of which looked great.

Mint Leaves from the Green City Market

Sorrel Leaves from the Green City Market

Scallions from the Green City Market

And finally to round out my Green City Market trip, I picked up Green Offerings bunch of tulips.  They’re very closed now (I purposely picked them like that) so hopefully I can watch them slowly open all week.

Tulips from Garden Offerings at the Green City Market

And since I was one of the first 200 to show up, I received a basil pot!  This one will go on my kitchen counter in a small pot.  Thanks Green City Market!

Basil Pot, a gift from the Green City Market

It’s far too nice to be inside today.  I’m back outside to enjoy the weather before it starts raining tomorrow.  Have a good day!

Related articles:

1. Friday Weeds – April 10, 2009
2. Friday Weeds – April 17, 2009
3. Friday Weeds – April 24, 2009

Lettuce Cultivars by David Shankbone, New York City

As a home farmer, growing single types of lettuce can get boring.  The fun of growing at home is growing a number of varieties that you wouldn’t necessarily buy for yourself.  This year, I’m planting two mixes of lettuces — European Mesclun Salad and Rocky Top Lettuce Salad.  I’ll talk about Rocky Top tomorrow.

European Mesclun Salad mix contains radicchio, arugula (formerly known as rocket), endive, orach, mizuna, kale, mustard, and corn salad.  I grow kale separately, but it adds variety to this salad mix.

Many people grow lettuces indoors and then transplant outside.  Primarily you’d like the warm soil to allow the lettuce to sprout — something we don’t get outside in Chicago in April.  Call me a little lazy, but I don’t mind waiting a few more days for the seeds to sprout directly in the ground.

In past years I’ve thrown seeds around in the plot to let them grow where ever they fell.  With salads, you tend to cut them at different times — early for baby leaves and later for full salad heads.  With the website and a new camera, I want to take more pictures of the vegetables throughout the season, so I’ve planted them this year in a more traditional row method.  At least I’ll be able to compare whether rows or free fall makes a difference.

Related articles:

1. Planted: Rocky Top Lettuce
2. Planted: Radishes
3. On the Farm, June 6, 2009