when are you planting your gardens?

Hi everyone,

I am out of hibernation (I think)..... It's still so chilly out but I am eager to get my garden going. Last year I did not plant til the first week of June and that seemed too late. When are all you green thumbers going to be digging in the dirt? And what are you growing this year? I'm doing a pretty typical garden of heirloom and cherry tomatoes, lettuce, arugula, eggplants, carrots, beets, and green beans. Oh and lots of herbs, of course (but not borage! That stuff practically took over my little plot last year!).

Looking forward to hearing about what's happening in your gardens or containers

I am very glad I didnt give in to temptation and plant a few weeks ago. I will put my established stuff in the ground anytime after this weekend and my seedlings/starters I will wait until next weekend.
I only do plants & flowers, some herbs. When I grew tomatoes and pumpkins I already would have had them in the ground with cold frames. This year I have about 100 various perennial plants that I started from seed 10 weeks ago and boy are they rarin' to go in the ground!!
Bob

Hi,

The average frost free date in this region is May 15th. Given the current cool conditions and frost warnings within the last two days, I would not be in any race to plant anything.

I did buy three flats of plants this morning, only because it was a sale supporting a horticultural program. Otherwise, I am no rush to do a thing. In fact, I will bring the flats onto my enclosed porch tonight.

This long cool stretch has kept the petals on our two Magnolias going for the last two weeks. My redbud still has not yet bloomed. My crabapple tree is preparing to launch soon as well. There are some good things about cool springs.

Regards,

This year's going to be tough: I'm on assignment in the Bay Area for the second half of May, so Memorial Day weekend may be the only time to plant, if Mrs. F can't get into the garden while I'm gone (she's got weekend stuff planned too).

I ordered plants from The Chile Woman -- one of the only places that sell tomatillo plants, as well as a huge variety of chiles and tomatoes. Nicely packed, although overall rather pricey ($2.50 per 3" plant, plus about $8/dozen for shipping).

Meanwhile, the mustard greens I planted last year are sending up lots of volunteers: the early leaves are great on sandwiches (make a great burger with bleu cheese dressing and sauteed mushrooms using the mustard for greens), the older ones are a bit too strong raw.

memorial day weekend for the peppers and tomatoes..
garlics i put in last fall are coming up nicely too

Many gardeners in the Chicago area tend to plant their cool-weather crops too late and warm-weather crops too early. Things like onion sets, peas and spinach really need to be in the ground by mid-April and can be planted in late March if the soil is workable. I planted onion sets, snow peas, sugar snap peas, seven-tops turnips, curly mustard and the first planting of spinach the first weekend in April because the soil wasn't dry enough until then. Radishes and the first planting of arugula and lettuce went in the next week. The second plantings of spinach and lettuce went in about two weeks after the first plantings.

I need to go out soon to pick small turnip and mustard greens for dinner. Cooked lightly they will go well with the chicken cooked over charcoal with a little fruitwood. Pea trellis needs to go up in the next day or two, or I will have trouble getting it between the two closely spaced rows. Peas love cool, sunny weather.

I grow my own tomato, pepper and eggplant plants. Now they are in the basement on a bed of sand with heating cables and full-spectrum fluorescent lights. The lights are on chains, so the can be raised as the plants grow. If the weather forecasts are accurate, these plants will go out for a short time this weekend. These plants will go in and out according to weather for hardening. My wife refers to this process as taking them out for a walk. After May 15 I will review soil temperature and five-day forecast. May 15 represents the 95 percent chance for past last frost for much of the Chicago area. However, night-time temperatures are often too cold for good growth then. In Lincoln Square, as with most of the North Side, we are less likely to have a late frost but more likely to have excessively cool air and soil temperatures than farther inland. You really have to pay attention to local conditions. The calendar is a rough guide, but you need to observe carefully. Temperature and soil condition are monitored by feel rather than formula. In many ways it is like baking bread or making pie crusts.

Basil needs to go out somewhat later than tomatoes, which are tougher then eggplant. Basil is very sensitive to temperature below 40 degrees F and is rather short on flavor until temperatures get up into the 80s a lot. My standard here is Genovese compacta basil, which has more flavor in thinnings while being started in a cold basement than most supermarket basil. If you think supermarket basil is good, you have my sympathy but won't understand what I am talking about.

I will probably say more later, but now I need to get the grill set up and start harvesting.

Anyone have tomatoes and chiles in yet? A gift from the tomato gods (in Bloomington, IN) just arrived and I'm eager to get them in the ground. This is my first year with a garden, so I would welcome any advice. (We built raised beds and have them filled and ready with a mix of top soil, composted manure and some peat moss.)

Thanks! Kristen

I have had my cold weather crops in since the first weekend in may (radishes and lettuce). Both are doing well. I planted some beets a week or so later. I planted my tomatoes, peppers and eggplant & pickles last weekend. Everything seems to be doing fine. Even in the few days since planting, I can see some growth.

I have herbs and peppers in.

All I've planted so far is a row of snap peas, which, my late dog not being around to chase them, have been devoured to the ground by bunnies.

Aside from that I've got a good crop of volunteer mustard greens, and a bumper crop of thistle.

I've got some small onions in, two cucumber plants, bell peppers, Hungarian peppers, chile's, early girl tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, and something branded as 'a patio tomato' in a pot on the patio.

I've got herbs in as well, this year I decided to go with dill, peppermint, parsley, sweet basil and thyme.

I'm also trying out a blueberry and raspberry bush. I'd also liked to have planted some rhubard but I think I might be too late with that for this year.

I just put in my tomatillos, tomatoes (beefsteak, Roma, cherry, & grape), and peppers (bell, poblano & an unspecified mixture of hot chilis). I also put in a row each of onions and spinach, even though it is a little late to start them. On my patio I have a wide variety of herbs growing in pots and some mesclun in a large container. I also started a strawberry patch but won't be able to touch it until next year. The only things left to go into the ground is some green beans and zucchini--which I will put in next week.

This year I was determined to see if I could really 'garden on the cheap' and planted almost everything from seed packets that I bought on sale (10 for $1.00) at the beginning of the year. Last year I sunk a sizeable chunk of change in my garden and felt a little guilty about it afterwards.

BTW, speaking of tomatillos... Earlier this spring, I had left a few tomatillos tucked away in a plastic bag in a dark recess of my refrigerator vegetable bin for too long and found that one was rotten. I decided to do a little experiment and took the inner seeds (& gooey matter) and spread them over a paper towel and left it to dry. Later, with the tip of a knife, I gathered up some of those seeds and planted them in peat pots, and guess what? They came up! So that's what I planted in my garden this week. Of course, this may just be some Mendelian disaster waiting to manifest itself, but it's worth the chance. If they don't produce, I can buy them at the market and be the wiser for it.

Hi,

My friend Sandy Oliver is a noted culinary historian and avid gardner. SHe lives on an island in the northeast. I don't know her climate zone, though I read her comments today about late fall spinach planting some may want to try:

Jamie plants it [spinach] in the fall, about a month before hard freeze and it comes up and sprouts a little, then we pile mulchy stuff on top then cross fingers that the winter is snowy enough to protect them then uncover in the spring and SALAD but that doesn't work every year. But we always try --

Regards,

I've had some leeks that never made it to eating size but have survived two winters in my garden; one year I covered them with a clear plastic bin (you know, the kind that goes under the bed) for a kind of impromptou cold frame. I've found that some things survive the winter without dying back as long as we don't have ice - for instance, swiss chard and kholrabi don't mind snow too much, but will disappear at the first sign of a thaw/freeze. I bet they'd survive this treatment.