Thursday, March 18, 2010

March 17-18: Planting of the Green in Chicago

A warm March 17 in Chicago, with temps near 70 Wednesday and Thursday. I had a boatload of editorial work to do, but managed to plant two SIPs with cool weather greens Bruce started over at his seed lab.

It was a good day.

Among other things, Art assembled the Sears beehive kit he got at an auction a long time ago.

Instructions like these give me the willies.


But he did a beautiful job.


Bruce stopped by early to drop off a tray full of greens
ready to plant.



I raced to the roof with my planting guide...

...and uncovered the big plastic trough that holds the planting mix.

Put in the baby bok choy
with two cups of organic fertilizer.

Carved out a center hole
in my garbage bag "shower cap."

And secured it with a large
rubber band.

Two SIPs done.

Bruce made a pear cake to share.

The next day, it snowed.

7 comments:

Chris said...

Hello a question about SIPs. My classroom has made a couple SIPs to grow some early veggies inside under grow lights to place outside later. Have you grown many root veggies like carrots and radishes with these? And if so are there any special considerations when doing root veggies compared to non rooters?

Thanks
Chris
PCCS 5/6 Grade Teacher and fellow garden blogger

H2 said...

Hey Chris:
I've not planted root vegetables in SIPs, but Bruce may have tried beets one year.

(Not sure exactly what you meant by starting veggies inside...but my general sense is that radishes and carrots prefer to be direct-seeded.)

Showing kids the magic of growing is a real gift. They're lucky to have you.

Chris said...

Well the starting inside was a bit by accident. We made two littler bottle ecosystems (very much like SIPs) and planted radish seeds because I knew they would germinate quickly. After the experiment was over and they were growing too big for the bottle I just couldn't kill them. So I checked your site and made a couple of SIPs. Then planted them in that, but that was four weeks ago with snow on the ground and cold weather. So they sit under my grow lights at school. Just wasn't sure the idea would work with root vegies.

H2 said...

You could probably start moving them outside soon, since they love cool weather...
http://www.victoryseeds.com/catalog/vegetable/radish/radish.html

Alison said...

Gorgeous brood box! I was glad to see in an earlier post that your bees are doing well. Ours did not make it through this awful winter--terribly depressing. Keep up the great work. BTW, you may want to consider putting the sugar water well away from the hive. Having a food source close to the entrance can provoke robbing behavior (I suspect this will be more of an issue when you have 2+ hives).

H2 said...

Thanks for the tip re robbing behavior. There's enough of that going on at the federal and state levels. So sorry to hear about your bees...but it was an awfully cold winter where you are.

Unknown said...

those are wonderful