Category: Gardening

Sunflowers make me smile, particularly in my own garden where I can see them every day. When I grow them in the backyard, they face away from the house, so I have to go outside to really enjoy them. When I grow them in the front garden, the sunflowers face the front door in the morning, and then turn towards the street later in the day, making the Spanish translation “girasol” (literally rotate + sun) a rather accurate name.

Sunflowers surprise me at times with their resilience. The stem for this particular sunflower was split, though I’m unsure whether it was by the foxes that play in my yard or a windstorm. The roots are still in the ground and the flowers opened despite the damage.

The locations surprise me sometimes too. There are the sunflowers I planted, and then there are the ones the squirrels plant from the bird feeder.

If you aren’t growing your own sunflowers, there may be a farm near you that has a field of them. In our case, Kuipers Family Farm in Maple Park has over 7 acres of just sunflowers that can be visited starting late August.

Well, this is a long overdue post about my garden. Not to say I’ve been neglecting the garden, I just forgot to post about it. To begin with, I had a late start at planting this year – I didn’t plant any seeds until we returned from our vacation late April. Then the weather was topsy-turvy, with some excessively warm days (great for germination) followed by cool ones (poor confused plants), including some late spring weeks where I turned on the air-conditioning and the heat in the same week.

We’re solidly into summer now, a surprisingly dry one according to my somewhat brown grass. It’s been just wet enough that I’ve gotten by with minimal plant watering (and I never water the lawn). We’re already harvesting peas, strawberries, mulberries, and blackberries, and the volunteer tomatoes have started producing flowers. There may be okra hidden under the peas… I’m honestly not sure if they’ve survived, though we’ll find out soon as the peas die out in the heat. I planted a few more okra seeds in another bed, just in case.

We’re growing sweet potatoes! After resounding success with purple potatoes last year, we decided on a mixed package of sweet potato plants with three different varieties. It’ll be a while before that harvest, but the vines are sprawling nicely.

Last, but certainly not least, is our “mammoth” sunflower circle. These plants have the potential to be significantly taller than us (up to twelve feet, if I remember right), so the area is intended as a reading nook. There are two rows of sunflowers wrapping around in a circle, with just enough of an opening for someone to walk in.

Anybody who grows pumpkins knows that you can’t plant them outside until after the last chance of frost. Around here, that’s mid-May. You’re probably wondering why, in that case, I have pumpkins growing inside in January.

This story begins some time after Halloween, when I cleared our decorative (and uncarved) pumpkins from the front yard. Intent on harvesting the seeds – some to roast, and some to dry for planting – I carried the somewhat softened pumpkins to the backyard and shattered them. That is to say I picked them up and dropped them, sometimes forcefully, repeatedly until they were open enough to get to the seeds, then composted the shells.

Normally, I would have just washed the seeds and left them on a tray to dry. But when I tried that, Zuko started eating the seeds. So they ended up in a smaller container, smushed together… and some of them sprouted. When I showed Cassandra, she insisted “we” grow them.

I had small coir pots and seed starting pods left from previous years, so I set up about a dozen of the sprouted seeds in a couple trays. (Some unsprouted ones were saved for outside planting in the spring.) As they outgrew their original containers, I repurposed some of the packaging from NakedWines.com for the next phase and bought a bag of potting soil.

As they outgrew that packaging, I knew it was time to invest in a larger container that could sit in my bay window. I wanted something raised, so I wouldn’t have to bend down past the sewing desk. I bought this container (and some more dirt) with holiday money; it’s about waist high, and includes a shelf underneath for storing bits and pieces.

There are nine pumpkins plants growing in my bay window now, and all of them are clearly leaning towards the window, grabbing as much sun as they can. I’m hoping they continue growing slowly for the next few months – the window gets good sun, but is a little cooler than the rest of the room – until the entire container can be relocated outside. Pumpkin vines have a tendency to sprawl, and I want to make sure they have space to do that… outside.

After I planted in the broken bed frame, I looked across my backyard and realized I wanted that entire strip of grass to be filled with raised beds, from the bed frame over to the windmill bed. I thought it would be a gradual process, starting next spring when I prepare whatever new bed I add for the year.

My plants have a different plan.

It’s not just the squash family plants, with their tendency to run out of beds, that are looking to expand their space this year. The three tomato plants I added to the keyhole bed have experienced explosive growth with this surprisingly warm summer, stretching over the squash and dangling out the side of the bed. And I keep redirecting the squash vines back into the bed frame, to keep them out of lawnmower range.

Most of the sprawling growth is headed south, so after mulching between the keyhole bed and the bed frame, I added a line of mulch to one side of the beds. Then, since the plants were already coming out of the keyhole bed, snaking towards the grass (now mulch), I grabbed a couple support cages from the shed and moved branches and vines around to intertwine with the cages.

But it’s only July, and weather-permitting, the squash varieties and tomato plants will continue into October… I need more space! And I need it now, before a ride-on mower devours a melon or acorn squash. (I’m less concerned about the tomatoes, they’re all bite-sized.) So it’s time to order a mulch delivery, rather than hauling small bags in my Corolla, and start next spring’s preparations early.

What a difference a month makes during gardening season! When I posted my spring garden update last month, the garden tower, keyhole bed, and bed frame were freshly planted, and the star was done with the seasonal bulbs with excess amounts of mint sneaking into the center.

And look at it now! The marigolds and petunias are thriving in both spots, but more so in the garden tower. I get to look out my kitchen window at this array of colors, paired with the bits of dill and purple basil that came back from last year’s herb garden.

The star bed lost its first batch of sunflowers, and with the bulbs done for the year, I weeded out the entire center. I then relocated some mystery squash (probably acorn squash), planted milkweed seeds (a few years old, no sign of germination yet), and the last few sunflower seeds from this year’s shopping. I’ve taken to watering the sunflowers with a mix of coffee grounds and cold water, hoping the coffee scent will discourage whatever’s been devouring my sunflower seedlings.

The keyhole bed has gone from early sprouts and seedlings to explosive growth, particularly the acorn squash and tomatoes, with the volunteer (read: probably planted by a bird or squirrel) sunflower towering over them. I’m hoping they’re squished enough in there to prevent the neighborhood woodchuck from eating all the squash flowers before they bear fruit.

The marigolds and petunias in the bed frame have grown a bit, though not as much as the ones in the garden tower. There are a couple mystery squash plants there too. I really hope the mystery squash is acorn squash… I like to bake it wrapped in bacon.

We are quickly shifting from spring to summer here in Chicagoland, though it varies by day which we’re enjoying. My first round of seeds has been planted everywhere I had planned, a couple starter plants purchased where seeds didn’t germinate, for the annual herbs up front, and my new garden bed. What’s more exciting is seeing tiny plants popping up across the various beds… and in the composter. Wait, what?

Yes, there are tiny squash plants in my open composter, just like there were last year. Those are probably acorn squash or carving pumpkins… it’s hard to tell at this stage.

My garden tower is filled with marigolds and petunias purchased through the Boy Scouts. The sheer quantity of individual plants included in their flats is insane; I filled the garden tower with half of each flat, and was left wondering what to do with the rest.

The star-shaped bed in front is my herb garden, with mint, chives, and cilantro carrying over from past years. I added parsley, sage, and rosemary into the points, and small (they only grow to about 6 feet) sunflowers in the middle, just behind the ninja gnome. There’s also mint popping up in the mulch… and the other points… I’m working on that.

In the back yard, my carrots failed to germinate in the keyhole bed, so I bought a couple tomato plants and a bell pepper. While I was watering them this week, I noticed the acorn squash and honeydew sprouting, along with the mystery squash in the composter. Based on what I can see at the moment, some of those mystery squash will probably end up in the windmill-shaped bed (not pictured) I set up last fall. One of the three squares in that bed has nothing germinating that I can see at the moment. One of the other squares is filled with okra, with all sixteen plants poking out.

The garden bed pictured in the bottom right is the old, cracked bed frame that I mentioned in last week’s post. It seemed like the perfect place for the rest of those marigolds and petunias. The empty space at the head and foot, also known as the “built-in trellises”… that’s where the big sunflowers have been planted. Big meaning they can grow up to fourteen feet tall. Past experience tells me that they tend to topple once the flower blooms, weighing too much for the roots to support. Shortly before that happens – if I’m on the ball – they’ll be secured to the trellises. Hopefully I’ll have some lovely photos to share later in the season.

Last, but certainly not least, is the small selection of fruit in my yard. The raspberries and mulberries came with the house; the raspberries are flowering, and the mulberry leaves are emerging for the season. On a more exciting note, the strawberries I planted last year near my grilling area have a tremendous amount of flowers, so I’m certainly looking forward to those.

What can I say, it’s Chicagoland. But it still looks like spring out there. My grass is green and will need mowing soon. My strawberries – added last year – are starting to revive. My hyacinths look lovely and smell better. And I’ve already started weeding.

OK, I’m not too thrilled about that last one, but it comes with gardening. Some of the weeds are things I planted, like the peppermint that wants to go everywhere in and around the star bed. Others, like thistle and burdock, which came with the yard, will probably come back soon, though in smaller quantities than when I bought the house.

And then there’s the vegetable garden. If you’re new to gardening, you may be deciding which seeds to order. I gather a lot of people are – my usual source, Territorial Seed Company, has stopped taking orders to catch up because of the unusually high demand. Due to compulsive organizing tendencies, I placed my order in January. In fact, I have peas and salad greens sprouting already, and I keep checking to see if my radishes and carrots are showing signs of starting.

Everything else that I want to plant, well, I’ll have to wait for the rest of spring to arrive.