Chives!

Do you have chives in your garden? It’s harvest time! Chives are a member of the onion (allium) family and grow perennially (they come back year-to-year). Often chives are one of the first signs of spring as they can tolerate cold weather and, if you planted them last year,...

Hello Garlic!

Did you plant garlic in your plot last fall and forget? Or did you inherit a plot with some robust “green things” already sprouting up? Don’t pull it! That’s garlic! And it will be ready to harvest later in the summer.         Garlic is typically...

Part 1: Seed Startin...

Start with clean plant pots, clean hands and a sterile seed starting mix. Most bagged mixes are already sterile. Starting seeds indoors in topsoil or compost can sometimes lead to fungal diseases in the seedlings, or too many nutrients that overwhelm the young plants. Moisten your seed...

Putting the Garden t...

With just a few weeks left in the Chicagoland growing season, October is the month where you’ll want to monitor the weather fairly closely, as we approach the first frost. The first frost is usually a “light frost”, where nighttime temperatures are between 32F and 30F. At...

Garlic Scapes

You may have heard about garlic scapes, or seen them in the farmers’ market. Garlic scapes are the stalks of hardneck garlic, and gardeners typically remove them between the summer solstice and the end of June. Removing the developing scape helps the plant divert energy from creating...