Flatbush Gardener

Urban Habitat Gardening with Native Plants

Edible Gardens, Chicago Botanic Garden

Posted on 2009-06-08 by admin

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The first garden visited by Chicago Spring Fling 2009 was the Chicago Botanic Garden. Spread out over nine islands, the Garden is huge: 385 acres. One could spend an entire day there and not see all of it.

The Fruit and Vegetable Garden occupies one of the islands of the Chicago Botanic Garden. There are several areas within this garden, showcasing orchards, vine fruits, vegetables, and other edibles. Here’s the entrance display that greets you after you cross the bridge to the island.

All of the display gardens were laid out beautifully. The formal designs and beautifully constructed hardscape would serve many kinds of gardens well. For food production, the structures assure interest and orderliness during the less tidy seasons.

Glam Shots

Violets, Parsley, and Cabbage

Swiss Chard ‘Bright Lights’

Potato Flowers

I did not disturb the Bollworm Traps in the orchard, but I did peek inside. No bollworm moth action when I visited.

Some Viola. I want to make some candied violets someday. I don’t know what the best species or variety would be.

Flowers of some Brassica.

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Chicago Spring Fling 2009

Links

Chicago Botanic Garden

Brooklyn Last Frost Date and Spring Planting Calendar

Posted on 2009-02-27 by admin

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Go to the Spring Planting Calendar setup by Skippy’s Vegetable Garden
Enter the date 04/21/2009 as the “Last Spring Frost” date for Brooklyn.
Click the [Generate …] button.
See how late you already are!

The hardest part of figuring out when to start seeds or set out plants is knowing when the “last frost date” is for your location. NOAA has a set of charts of frost and freeze dates on their Web site, one for each state, with a set of date for each of their measuring stations. Here’s the explanation NOAA provides:

This product contains station freeze/frost probability tables for each state. Given are the dates of probable first and last occurrence … and the probability of experiencing a given temperature, or less … probabilities are given for three temperatures (36, 32, and 28 °f) at three probability levels (10, 50, and 90 percent).

The chart for New York state [PDF] lists four stations in New York City, including one on Avenue V in Brooklyn. Let’s look at the Spring-relevant subsection of the New York state table for NOAA’s Brooklyn station:

Threshold (F)	90%	50%	10%
36	Apr01	Apr11	*Apr21*
32	Mar21	Apr01	Apr13
28	Mar10	Mar24	Apr07

To get the “last frost date” for Brooklyn, I chose the most conservative – the safest – values: the highest of the three temperatures, 36F, and the 10% probability threshold. The date given is April 21. That means that there’s only a 10% chance that the temperature will drop to 36F or lower on or after April 21, so that’s the date I used for “Last Spring Frost” in the Spring Planting Calendar.

Links

Spring Planting Calendar Skippy’s Vegetable Garden NOAA charts of frost and freeze dates