What's growing in the garden?

See what's growing this week in the Mitchell Garden.

Sleeping Bumblebees: Did you know as summer starts to wind down and the weather begins to cool, bumblebees sometimes fall asleep on flowers when they don't make it back to their hives in the evening? The center of the flowers are a little warmer than the outside air, so it helps keep the bees a little bit warmer. The bees will sleep until the temperature warms up, often times when the sun starts to shine on their flowers for a little while. I've found many sleeping bees in the garden this month. And as soon as the sun is on them for 10-20min, they wake up and fly away.

August: August always brings the sounds of Cicadas. Do you hear them outside in the evening? Have you seen a cicada up close? I bet you've seen some of the empty cicada shells clinging to a tree. Check out the cicada I found in the garden. Aren't they very interesting looking? The sunflowers are finally starting to bloom. I will start planting more cold weather seeds soon so that by fall we will have some crops that can handle some cold temperatures like kale, chard, kohlrabi and root vegetables.

July: The weather has been really dry this month so I've had to do a lot of watering. We usually have some of our families help water but with the current situation with Covid-19, we are playing it safe; trying to reduce the number of people using our garden tools and being in the garden at a time. I do occasionally see families coming through safely to visit the garden, and we always have daily visits by all our various pollinator friends. If you visit the garden, feel free to cut a couple of flowers to take home. Some plants like the Zinnias, will continue growing new flowers when you cut them off. Remember, please don't pull out the plants and make sure to save some for our pollinators.

The photos this month are in chronological order, top to bottom

Week of June 22nd: We had a real hot spell last week and the plants have had a big growth spurt. Some of our early greens like our spinach have bolted from the hot weather. Cool weather crops like Spinach and Cilantro do not like when the weather is hot and will flower and go to seed in mid summer. This will often make the plant's leaves bitter tasting so we will either let it go to seed to save the seeds or pull the plants out, and plant something that likes the hot weather. I've added a few tomato plants and tomatillo plants. I miss having all the kids and family summer help in the garden this year. With the city moving into phase 4, we can hopefully set up a few families to help later in July and August.

Week of June 15th: Our plants are getting bigger! We also have Eastern Black Swallowtail caterpillars on our dill plants.

Week of June 8th: Everything in the garden is starting to pick up their pace. The seeds that were planted in the raised beds are getting ready to harvest and our native plants in the garden are starting to bloom.

Week of June 1st: The weather has been quite rainy and warm lately, which helps with plant growing! A lot of the seeds that were planted in our raised beds are finally growing big. Because we couldn't have our students help plant in the garden, Ms. Debbie had a little fun with laying out the seeds. Can you see the little wave design she put in when she planted some flower seeds? In the pockets of the wave, there are lettuces and other greens planted. The peas and beans are starting to get big as well.

She also planted some mammoth sunflower seeds throughout the raised beds. Mammoth sunflowers can grow up to 12 feet tall! Mitchell garden also has a lot of Common Milkweed growing. Milkweed is the only food source for Monarch Butterfly larvae. We have seen the number of monarch caterpillars that come visit our garden grow each year. They've already started laying eggs on our milkweed. A baby caterpillar was spotted on the milkweed!

Week of May 4th: Things are looking greener in the garden. The Virginia Bluebells have bloomed. Many native perennials were planted in our new garden on Oakley. Perennial plants are plants that live more than two years, and the name literally translates to "through the years." Unlike short-lived annuals or biennials (plants that take two years to grow), these varieties are fairly low-maintenance after their initial planting. So these plants will come back year after year on their own. It's fun to plant new plants in the garden every year, but it is also great to save some extra work by planting these perennial plants. The plants will come back year after year without too much extra work.

The herb spiral is looking a little sparse, but we should see things start growing there soon.

Week of April 20th: It's spring in Chicago and the first flowers to bloom after the long winter are usually spring flowering bulb plants. We have a variety of flowering bulb plants in the Mitchell Garden. When I walked around at the end of April I saw hyacinth, daffodils and tulips. We also have Virginia Bluebells that are about to bloom. Virginia Bluebells are not bulb plants but are native to area. I just woke up our raised garden beds by adding some compost and mixing it into the existing soil. Since we won't get a chance to plant together this spring, I decided to spread some flower, lettuces and greens seeds. I'll keep adding to the photos this week so check back to see if there are any new photos!