Once and future community gardeners

the view from our new plot

ITEM: We are officially members of the Woodlawn community garden. If that is even its name. There is no sign, no contact information, nothing formal about it at all, so getting in was a matter of stalking to find anyone who might be willing to part with a phone number. Seems it’s a loose affiliation of academics, longtime locals (and babies). In a stroke of either very good luck or just good timing, we secured two adjoining plots, and will garden right next to our real life next-door neighbor.

I got my start veggie gardening at Austin’s Sunshine Community Garden, and loved the freedom to create, the weirdos, the workdays, and the space as much as the lettuce and tomatoes. We’ll see how this goes, but one thing is for sure: access to very local, organic, affordable vegetables is looking up! Access to the community: seems it was easier than it looked.

They need cleaning up, but they'll do.

It’s here. We nearly missed it.

We left 5 days ago in early spring weather, but arrived home late today, the first day of spring, to find the season nearly passed us by. At 84 degrees, this is the 7th straight day of at or over record temps in Chicago. The same is forecast for tomorrow. No one wants to contemplate the summer to follow such a spring.

Tulips mingle with hellebores. Magnolias are in full blossom! And our neighbor’s cherry tree bloomed today. We marveled at it from the back porch, with a cold glass of wine after dark. I know this is happening all over (the phenology, but maybe the wine, too), but the shared experience makes it no less startling.

Chicago is USDA Hardiness Zone 6a, and the average last frost date is April 25.

Is it too early?

…to indoctrinate our 10-month-old into the cult of gardening? Besides introducing him to the fun of playing in the dirt (once he gets past the urge to eat it), I can’t wait to get him crap like this:

And this:

But I kind of want this for myself. It would make the fairies so happy.

A forest of tree stories

How did I miss this? A blog just for trees. It’s an aggregator, spreading the tree love.
Kinda wonder why they didn’t name it Silva rerum.

If you love all things tree, go read, and Submit your posts, videos, and photos, too.

Music for thunderstorms

…am I the only one who sees what’s going on?

Time-telling flora

Many of us use the appearance of flowers in the landscape to signal seasons. Here’s Jun Gao doing interesting work with flowers and photography to mark time. I’ve been tired of straight-ahead pictures of plants, my own especially. Though his time-lapse images, some taken over many days, look aged and worn, they feel fresh.

Floral Life-Yellow Daffodils 2010.3.7-2010.3.21, 2010, Exposure Time: 15 days,Medium: 4×5 Color Film C-Print, 120cmx100cm
Copyright Jun Gao

He’s a Hey, Hot Shot! contender, and I wish him luck. See more in his floral gallery.

On the map

I was pretty excited to find out that Cornell Plantations used my images for the front and back of their new visitor map. These were taken on a pristine spring day among the blooming crabapples, when my only job was to be outside exploring beauty. I’ll take that job any time.

Happy Monday: covered in bees

Not writing on colony collapse or honey spinning, just laughing.

Simple sweetness, snow version

By Paul Octavious, Chicago photographer and designer

Better elephant news: babies!

Better news for elephants today, from the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. When we were in Nairobi, we visited the elephant orphanage at Sheldrick, an incredible day. The mama and baby elephants in this video are at their preserve in East Tsavo. The orphans were rescued as babies when their mothers are killed, almost always by poachers. They are growing up and having babies of their own. Watch the community welcome the new baby. It’s really something special.

You can also read the story with photos and find out about fostering baby elephants here.