dodecahedron

June 25, 2011

We have struggled over the last couple of seasons with attacks of powdery mildew on our squash plants. Last year, we made the drastic step of pulling the entire contents of the “dodecahedron” bed early so that we could amend the bed in an attempt to strengthen the next year’s crop against disease.

This year, we planted the dodecahedron bed with Waltham Butternut squash, sunflowers, and tomatoes. After a slow start, the bed exploded with growth. Aided by good weather, assiduous tending, and (we think) the soil amendments, the bed is now a small jungle of plants. Wandering vines strain against the chicken wire fence. The soil is obscured by lush, green leaves that are a foot wide. Enormous squash flowers hide among the leaves. Sunflower plants tower over everything.

July 2, 2011

July 16, 2011

August 6, 2011

october 2, 2010 - sexing the squash flower

 After the warmth and sunshine of the previous weekend, the overcast and windy morning of October 2 threatened to be dispiriting. The garden initially appeared drab, but eventually yielded color to the determined eye.

Almost all of our plants were still producing. The volunteers and clients at the pantry are surprised that we can still bring them tomatoes and peppers. We gardeners are surprised at the number of green beans that we continue to harvest, from plants that were established almost as an afterthought in a bed from which we had removed earlier plants mid-season.

While I delivered the delivery, other volunteers prepared the garden for high winds that were predicted later in the day. Later, while Michael turned our compost beds, Susan led the other volunteers in stringing up herbs to dry in the garden shed. In a few weeks, we’ll stem and crush the dried sage and oregano leaves. If we are ambitious enough, we might even make little bouquets garni to donate to the pantry.

It is usually easier to turn the compost if you're standing in the bin.

When I returned, the others were ready to call it a day. Dee asked whether she could take home some of the flowers from our squash bed. When I mentioned that I thought that we might still get a few more squash before we had to pull up the bed for winter, Dee replied that she only planned to take the male flowers. This was how I learned that squash flowers are gendered: the female flowers are the ones with the bulbs that become the squash fruit.

Male squash blossom

Female squash blossom. The smaller bulb at the base 
of the flower will become the squash.

Saturday, August 22 saw a large handful of volunteers enjoy perfect weather for gardening: not too hot, a little breezy, a little sunny, a little cloudy, maybe slightly too cool at times but things warmed up towards the end of the afternoon (and we did have some rather nice coffee and muffins).

And we did have some unusual visitors checking out the Rudbekia (possibly a sweat bee from the Agapostemon genus):



There have been a couple of side effects of Chicago’s unseasonably cool (some would say “comfortable”) and wet summer. One is that our harvests are smaller than usual for this time of year. This week we harvested only about 85 pounds.

We’ve got lots of tomatoes on the vine, but they just aren’t ripening as quickly as they would normally. The same goes for the pattypan squash (the ones that look a bit like yellow flying saucers). But the greens aren't bothered at all.

To be honest, there were only a few volunteers, so we didn’t harvest the potatoes, which is a big job and last week accounted for at least 10 pounds. The potatoes will be fine waiting another week to be dug up. And we are letting some of the green bell peppers stay on their plants so we’ll have red peppers to take up to Vital Bridges for a change. We talk about doing this every year, but somehow in our zeal to harvest we are impatient and pluck the peppers when they are nice-sized but still green.

The cucumbers, however, are doing surprisingly well. We harvested about 24 pounds this week. That long, pale serrated-looking cuke is colloquially called an “Armenian cucumber”. In reality, it is a type of melon. When sliced open it has very few seeds and tastes nicely of cuke, but it is a melon.



Some funny-shaped (but delicious!) heirloom tomatoes ready to go to Vital Bridges:



The other side effect of our unusual summer weather is that the leaves of the squashes and the cukes are covered in powdery mildew. This is a concern because it is affecting not only our summer crops but our winter squashes as well (we’ve got some acorn squash and some pumpkins already coming along nicely and we don’t want to lose them). We’ve had another go at spraying the affected plants with a neem oil solution to try to stop the mildew from spreading. It seems like it may be working.

And there are hints of veggies to come later in the season. Check out the three stages of the acorn squash all on one vine, all right next to one another: flower, early pale squash, later green squash.



And a happy-looking pumpkin:



The plums are looking pretty tempting and should be ripe any day now, but somehow we forgot to take a photo of them. Check back next week for that!

Transporticulture

Saturday afternoon the Active Transportation Alliance brought a whole slew of bicyclers for their annual Veggie Bike and Dine.

Veloship:


Folks were effusive about how great the garden looked – which, although we appreciated the sentiment, surprised us. We thought it looked awfully defoliated since earlier that day we'd harvested another 117.2 pounds for donation! Tomatoes and peppers are definitely coming in, but the big bumper crops were cucumbers and squashes. We also harvested swiss chard, kale, collards, beets, radishes, broad beans, bush beans, potatoes, basil, and handful of daikon.

Reviewing the data:


Late August and early September is the time of year with the biggest harvests! Come by and see how we're doing!

Note: Photos are courtesy and copyright of Arline Welty (top) and Katie Schuering (bottom).

Hundred Pound Summer

Finally Chicago has followed through on its annual promise of summer weather and along with the heat and humidity comes our favorite summertime vegetables. Tomatoes are just starting to ripen, peppers are still green, but the cucumbers, zucchini, pattipan squashes, and broad beans are at full-strength.

Looky here! Liz shows off a couple mean beans:


Of course gardening is not all sunshine and beet greens. The bad news is that we officially gave up the BATTLE OF THE SPUDS against an advancing army of aphids. As an organic garden, we can't use any non-organic pesticides and the ones we had been trying (a mild, biodegradable detergent and neem oil) hadn't been enough to temper their onslaught. C'est la vie, c'est la guerre, c'est la pomme de terre: we tore out half the bed and brought the admittedly handsome spuds up to the foodbank as well.


Digging out potatoes:


Washing potatoes for donation:


Veggies are coming in with such speed, we picked 100.5 pounds of vegetables for donation this Saturday! It's a gratifying thing to pull such a bounty and lug it up to the foodbank we donate to: Vital Bridges' Groceryland. It was a hit!

Dave and Karen at Vital Bridges:


Clients helping themselves to the harvest:


Note: All photos in this post are by Katie Schuering and used with her permission. Thanks Katie!

Sunday work day

One Sunday a month, we have a special workday in which we are joined by a team of Chicago Cares volunteers. While our Saturday sessions are usually frenetic with the tasks of harvesting and delivering, our Sundays are often more strenuous, if less glamorous. Freed from the demands of the regular harvest, we focus on longer-term projects and maintenance: weeding walkways, picking up, reorganizing the shed, turning the compost bins, and pruning.

Last Sunday was especially productive. With the help of an industrious team of volunteers, we worked our way through and beyond our to-do list. We cleared our apple and pear trees of the unfortunate victims of a fruit blight. We dismantled one of our listing trio of compost bins so that we can rebuild it with reinforcements. We weeded out front and between the pavers of the entry walkway.

We also built some overdue trellises to support trailing plants. In our latest bed of pole beans, we strung a cat’s cradle of garden twine. To support and—we hope—direct our flourishing winter squash plants in their pumpkiny peregrinations, we attached a wall of wood trellises (an alley find) to poles along the side of the bed. For summer squashes that often tend to rot when they lie directly on the soil, we strung a net of cotton clothesline.

It was all good, needed work that should benefit the garden later.

Berry Bounty

The big news 'round Ginkgo this week was the bumper crop of raspberries. Between the black and red raspberries, we plucked six pounds off our canes (note: this weight doesn't count those berries that might have accidentally wound up in our mouths whilst picking.) Of course, the folks up at the pantry were as pleased as we were proud.

Steering committee member Susan shows off the bounty:


Even though we're still mostly harvesting greens the summer vegetables are growing fast. Sweet potatoes, squashes, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and tomatillos are all going gang busters. We even pulled an eggplant this week!

After taking care of the harvest (50 lbs!), we got to work on the summertime nitty-gritty. A fantastic group of volunteers from Chicago Cares did a yeoman's job (or yeoperson, rather, and several of 'em) of weeding, watering, cutting, tying, and tending the garden. It was hot out but the volunteers chipped in without complaint.

Good work if you can get it:


This season has been very productive but the insect world has noticed too. Chicago Cares volunteers Sam and David addressed our aphids while the rest of us peeked fearfully at some wasp condominiums going up under the eaves of the shed. Just when we were about to curse their entire subphylum, who should show up on the milkweed but a monarch butterfly caterpillar?

What a charmer:


This tyke and her friends are welcome in our garden. As are you! Come visit Thursday evenings or Saturday mornings to see how we're doing.