Urban Plants

Chicago hasn't aesthetically looked like an urban place to me despite living here for about two and a half years.  But I've picked up a few things:

Chicago houses might be narrow, but they're long - and they go pretty far back.

An urban area that has lots of trees feels a lot less like an urban area. Andersonville has always felt a bit more friendly than the Loop because of this. Green instead of concrete just feels a bit better (although I'm sure the Loop would test out green painted concrete as a short term solution to please residents down there.

Sometimes you're just getting accustomed to an urban place so you notice the endless rows of houses more.

So, while taking pictures of the kitchen plants to keep on file and document their growth, I noticed that I truly do live in an urban area. Maybe I was just ignoring it, or comparing little Andersonville to Brooklyn, in which Brooklyn looks like the massive stone giant.

Urban Jade
Crassula ovata

Clapping Hands (or Bunny Ears)
Opuntia microdsys

Spider Plant
Chlorophytum comosum

Cactus Rock looking over the houses.

The lone star Cactus Rock.

Ivy Unwinding

Urban Crown of Thorns
Euphorbia Milii

Crown of Thorns Budding
Euphorbia Milii

All Plants on Deck!

Well, the cold ones at least. Today I planted some cold vegetables as it is the season. And it's fun to do new things and I've never grown anything cold.

It's pretty up and down weather wise here in Chicago. Last week we had nearly 80 degree days, nearly every day. Chicago's become so spoiled and now we're expecting the temperature to hover at around 40 degrees at night. That's pretty cold after some nice, sunny days.

But that's how Chicago rolls: it builds up your spirits only to crush them. How we carry on here!

With cold weather comes cold growing vegetables. The plants on the list purchased today were:

• Kale
• Broccoli
• Buttercrunch lettuce
• Romaine lettuce 

We initially bought chives but had a bit of a roly-poly (pill bug, or Armadillidum vulgare) problem, which as it turns out, are pretty good and nearly harmless. They excrete nitrogen into the soil; hey, that's awesome. But they like to eat dead plant matter, which I'm expecting a lot of. And when you watch 10 fall out of the cup and then see at least five more all wedged up near the roots, you just have to wonder if you'll have an infestation. After all, the chives were to go into the earth box: a plastic box that's kept really moist and pretty dark.

That, to me, is just begging for an infestation of pill bugs. A quick did you know fact: they're more closely related to crabs than they are to insects. Weird.

The earth box planting went off without a hitch. We didn't re-use our soil and we didn't buy a replacement kit. We just used the same Happy Frog fertilizer (it's organic!) that we used last year and bought Baccto potting mix. 

These guys look a little sad, but I'm expecting them to beef up as the spring rolls on. At least we won't be short of salad this summer. 

I'm excited to see what will come of this. I hear Kale is super good for you (high in beta carotene, vitamin K, vitamin C, calcium and more) and I want to start eating healthier and not have to buy produce packed with pesticides and junk like that. 

And hey, it's good to be back writing on this blog.

Till next time, ya'll.

-RC

The "Restoration" of Chicago's Nature

This post, which may, or may not turn out to be a rant, was inspired by Growing in Chicago


The city of Chicago has a great habit of "restoring" wetlands when the land wasn't wet, when wild lands, and what few trees, in pre-industrial days were the natural skyscrapers.  Take this "restoration" for example.  Blogger Beth Botts recounts a harrowing tale of how the Army Corps of Engineers tried to "restore" Washington Park to its natural "wetland."     

Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

Fredrick Law Olmsted, the parks' creator, first saw a flat field void of trees.  His initial plans included adding some trees surrounded by a meadow, even inviting sheep to graze, which, if the grass is natural prairie Switchgrass, ends up being more beneficial to not only the sheep, but also the grass.  Grazing sheep help spread the seeds of Switchgrass, and without this natural animal grazing, the prairie needs to undergo a controlled fire.  I'm sure that in the late 19th century, Chicagoans were frightened by even the thought of fire.


Paul Cornell, who was most likely a money hungry, corporate leech, strongly "encouraged" Olmsted to include some sporting areas, because somehow it's better to sport next to a meadow.  Oh, I'm sure Cornell had every intention of either making this park only accessable to the elite or by charging a fee, but we won't mention or talk of this.  (It's not even like any of this has any claim, I'm just assuming that anyone who wants to turn a park into a sporting area has to be in it for the money).  


Here's an old picture of Washington Park, once again, by way of Wikipedia.

Thus, this creation mythology of how Washington Park is a natural wetland is born.  I'm all for parks being restored, but how about bringing in some trained professionals and actually restoring the land to its original habitat?  I mean, Switchgrass isn't that ugly and boring to look at.  Panicum virgatum is being used as a renewable energy and all those great native animals feed on the plant.  It's not just Switchgrass either, but the other hundreds of different varieties of tall-grass prairie.  If we would only look at the natural grasses that once flourished on our land, we would see the beauty (and deer!).  

Less than 0.01% of tall-grass prairie remains in the Midwest, and hey, that's where the tall-grass prairies grow.  Along with demise of the tall-grass prairie were buffalo, rabbits, deer, and elk.  Insects and bees left, too.  Let's also not mention how many awesome, cute little birds must have been affected as well.  It's sad, and a shame that we, as humble, humane people who constantly boast about being "green," treat our land, our nature, our provider.  

No wonder some people say we're doomed.  Perhaps we're not though.  No, surely we're not.  If only we would all take heed from this warning, this seemingly insignificant warning, and pay attention to nature, even if only for a mere five minutes.  We can learn something about the past, the land, about ourselves.