I had RT, my landscaper, finish rototilling my raised beds and the heirloom tomato bed yesterday. I prepared the cucumber bed by hand and finished raking the raised beds. Rain is coming in over the next few days along with higher temperatures, so I am hoping I can get some planting done between raindrops.

We had a frost and freeze last night. I brought all of the potted flowers in and covered the herbs and vegetables. The temperature dipped to 27° last night. Everything survived.

I cleaned up the herb garden around the deck today and planted parsley, rosemary and tarragon. I got rid of a clump of garlic chives in the chive bed and moved a new clump of regular chives into it’s place. Last year’s sage plants are leafing out so I trimmed out the dead branches. The chocolate mint is coming up, so I need to find someplace to put the plants that I bought. Maybe in a pot in the herb garden. The oregano is coming up also, but I’m not sure of its flavor. Some crept in last year that had almost no flavor.

I planted four short rows of Fava beans today. These are cool weather beans which I have never grown before. They might need support later on. I guess I’ll find out.

Goebbert’s opened on Friday for curbside pickup, but it had snowed a couple of inches which melted quickly, but I waited yesterday to order pansies and lettuce and a few herbs. They didn’t have red romaine or spinach available yet so I got a flat of gourmet mix and planted 4 rows in the garden and and 1 large pot on the deck. I got the pansies into the front and back deck planters also. I am still planning where I will put the herb garden, so the herbs remain in their pots.

I’ve had a busy week videoing the Holy Week services at St. Anne’s. We are 3-4 days ahead so I have time to edit and post before the Triduum. All churches are still closed because of the Corona Virus as well as everyone has stay-at-home orders.

But I did get a little break today and planted a wide row of Arugula and a row of Pak Choi. Temps were in the upper 70’s and rain is coming, so I was glad to get that in. If I have time tomorrow and it’s not too wet, I’ll put in some Fava beans.

The chives are all about 6-8 inches high and there is enough for all of my needs. We picked some today to add to our mac and cheese dinner and I used some on potatoes the other night. It is nice to have fresh herbs again. There isn’t really much that survived the winter. One of the sage plants has a few green leaves popping out and the dried leaves are still hanging on and they are quite aromatic. And some of the green onions are popping up, but not many.

I am not sure if any of the oregano made it or not. Nothing visible yet.

I was out in the garden today with my grandfather’s rake. I raked the three new raised beds to get them level. They were wetter than I expected, given that we had a week without precipitation, but the snow finally just melted a day ago. In spite of the wetness, they were rakeable and all three are somewhat ready to plant.

I planted two four foot rows each of Romaine, Spring Mix and Bloomingsdale Long Standing Spinach. The seed packets said to wait until all danger of frost was past but I never heard of planting greens that late. The instructions always say, “Plant as soon as the ground can be worked in the spring.” the seed brand is Livingston which I got at Ace since I was in a hurry.

Outdoor temperature is near 70 and sunny. Rain tomorrow with temps returning to seasonable for the rest of the week.

It’s a start.

So, the weird weather continues. The trees haven’t lost most of their leaves yet. The official snowfall for Chicago on Oct 31 was 3.4″ observed at Chicago O’Hare International Airport. This breaks Chicago’s previous daily record for Oct 31 of 0.1″ set in 2014.

Last night the temperature dipped into the lower 20s and into the teens in the Rockford area. This should help get the leaves down from the trees, and definitely did in all of the potted flowers.

It appears to be a repeat performance of last year where no cleanup could be done because the leaves froze in place. Fortunately, I got the plants out of the garden as well as the tomato cages and stakes. Whether I can get some organic matter into the new raised beds remains to be seen. It is critical that I have some beds ready to go this fall in case we have a wet spring again.

Sunday looks like the warmest day with a high of 45 and sunny. Hope to get at least a few things done.

Late planting really messes up yield and first-pick date. I really need to get tomatoes and peppers in by mid-May. The peppers were planted on June 7. The tomatoes, other than the Romas were planted on June 18. I think that when one purchases plants that have already set fruit, you’ll get a couple of early fruits and then the rest are stunted.

I picked the first batch of four Champion tomatoes on July 4, but is was well over a month until any more ripened.

The first batch of Jalapenos were good, but there were no flowers on the plants after I picked the first bunch, but they finally had another nice crop late in the summer.

Green peppers were small, and the banana peppers didn’t do well. On the other hand, the poblano peppers were prolific and large.

The Countryside Sungold and Sun Sugar cherry tomatoes had amazing flavor

Countryside chocolate sprinkles and Chocolate cherry tomatoes were late and slow to ripen

Goebbert’s Roma Tomatoes performed very well until the groundhog ate them all

Home Depot (Bonnie Plants) Shishito peppers were early and prolific. I planted 10 plants. The way we like them probably should plant 12.

Eggplants did well. Blackbell II and White Star. 4 plants were more than enough.

Countryside Summer Dance cucumbers did very well with long fruits and small seeds. The other varieties did well but need to be picked earlier. They matured too fast.

It’s hard to evaluate the heirloom tomatoes since the groundhog ate most of them. It did appear that they were very slow to ripen. Other gardeners mentioned that tomatoes were slow to ripen this year The Brandywine yellow plant outlasted all of the others at the end of the season.