spring home and garden 2013

7/30/2019 Spring Home and Garden 2013

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OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM | RBLANDMARK.COM April 24, 2013 1

SPRING HOME

& GARDENIts that time of year

when you want to role up your sleeves

and get your hands in the earth.

And the beet

goes onI N S I D E S P R I N G H O M E & G A R D E N 2 0 1 3Up on the roofGarden top garage

Page 4

Yes, wormsComposting

delights

Page 5

Mind gardenClearing your

head

Page 9


2/12

2 April 24, 2013 OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM | RBLANDMARK.COM


3/12


S P R I N G H O M E & G A R D E N 2 0 1 3

Contents

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Spring Home & Garden staffSection Editor Dan Haley

Shopping Editor Sarah CorbinOnline Technology Editor Graham Johnston

Digital Editor Rosie PowersPhoto Editor David Pierini

Editorial Design Manager Claire InnesSection Art Director Claire Innes

Editorial Designers Sky Hatter, Mark TataraAd Design Manager Andrew Mead

Ad Production ManagerPhilip SoellAdvertising DesignersPhilip Soell,

Debbie Becker, Maggie AckerAdvertising ManagerMarc Stopeck

Advertising Sales Missy Laurell, Dawn Ferencak

Advertising Coordinator Alicia Plomin

Classified Advertising Sales Maurenn OBoyle

Circulation Manager Kathy Hansen

Distribution CoordinatorAlan MajeskiCirculation AssociateMike Braam

Publisher Dan Haley

VP/Director of OperationsAndrew Johnston

Wednesday Journal, Inc., 141 S. Oak Park Ave.

Oak Park, IL 60302 // 708-524-8300www.WednesdayJournalOnline.com

www.ForestParkReview.com // www.RBLandmark.com

ON THE COVER: Photo couretsy of Sugar Beet Cooperative

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4 April 24, 2013 OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM | RBLANDMARK.COMS P R I N G H O M E & G A R D E N 2 0 1 3

By DEB QUANTOCK McCAREYContributor

I

n their retirement years, Oak Parker Phyllis Bowen says

that she and her spouse Samuel havent minded climb-

ing the stairs up to their newly-constructed rooftop gar-

den to watch the flowers, fruits, herbs and veggies grow.

In a way, its the avid gardeners dream come true.

I have always loved gardening, but I had so muchshade in my yard that I couldnt grow vegetables, says

Bowen, who two years ago retired from as a professor of

nutrition at the University of Illinois at Chicago. So, our

old garage was really falling down, and we thought, wow,

what if we built a new one and put a garden on the roof ?

Last year, with the assistance of Hutter Architects and

Premier Construction Services, they spent $60,000 to build

a two-car garage complete with rooftop garden.

While they were at it, they also expanded their backyard

patio space, which for their 50th wedding anniversary last

June, the Bowens utilized for outdoor entertaining.

Mr. Bowen, hes a physicist, so he did the recalculationfor the roof pitch, and we went searching for the ideal prod-

ucts to support the garden, and found ourselves in places

that we would never have thought existed, says John Klich

of Premier in LaGrange Park.

The two men located steel, and fabricating warehouses

which had in stock materials that Klich says provide the

proper underpinning that will absolutely ensure that theroof can support the weight of a productive garden: on the

wooden deck are 10 large rectangular raised beds, lots of

large clay pots, plus pounds and pounds of soil, and water,

the stuff needed, plus sun, of course, to sustain it all.

Last year was our first year of gardening up there, and

we had temperatures of 102 degrees, Bowen says. I had

to water all the time, and my tomatoes had cracks in them

and stuff like that. So, since then, I have gotten all sorts of

books, and everything, and I am going to read more, so this

year I hope to do better.

Very soon, Sam, a semi-retired professor of theoretical

physics at Chicago State University, plans to add a drip ir-rigation system, as well as an along-the-staircase lift to lug

all the garden materials up and down for them.

Partially in view by summer, she hopes will be every-

thing from tomatoes, peas and asparagus, to broccoli,

cucumbers, lettuces and herbs. Also growing there is a

strawberry and raspberry patch, plus dahlias, and her

aromatic David Austin roses.

Two potted dwarf cherry trees will take up residence,

soon.

I love gardening, says Bowen, who formerly partici-

pated in the community gardens of Root Riot on Madison

Street in Oak Park Im in nutrition, you know, so cooking

is really a big thing for me. So now it is so easy to race upthe stairs and get all the herbs and fresh produceand

then, later at night, Sam and I just love to go up to the roof-

top garden and sit in those chairs and watch the moon.

A new two-car garage

and veggiesup top

DAVID PIERINI/Sta Photographer

Sam and Phyllis Bowen on their roof-top garden in OakPark.

Too much shade?Put your garden on the roof


5/12




E

specially for urban gardeners like

me who live in small spaces, worm

composting (also called vermicom-

posting) is a productive, fun anddoable way to divert biodegradable

kitchen scraps away from a landfill

and back into the soil in my gar-

denor on to my indoor plants as

a top dressing.

In my basement I use a 10-gallon Rubbermaid

container to house my Red Wriggler worms that

eat my garbage to produce their personal brand

of homemade organic fertilizer.

My home worm composting operation

still consists of that container. It was pur-

chased from a big box store three years ago

when I took a composting class at Garfield

Park Conservatory on the West Side.

Since then, I have discovered that some

vermicomposters actually build their own

bins, or buy fancier ones online. Regard-

less how you start worm composting, your

bin must be at least 10 to 16 inches deep,

have holes or slits on the side or top for

worm aeration, and include a tight fitting

top to keep the worms in and pests out.

Initially I started by filling the bin three-

quarters of the way up with strips of shred-

ded newspaper (no glossy pages, please),and used a water spray bottle to dampen

the bedding -- which they also eat -- to the

consistency of a wrung-out sponge.

Next, I added a couple of handfuls of

microbial-rich garden soil, dropped in

about 1 pound of Red Wriggler worms into

the bedding (about 1,000 worms), and then

I served (buried) their first mealabout

one quart of veggie peels, coffee grounds,

crushed egg shells, things like that.

Without a doubt, they quickly went to work

eating the scraps, making more worms, and

expelling their castings, which is the super-rich organic fertilizer they produce and I

use on my tomatoes and other plants.

So, year-round, my worms are in a dark

corner in my basement working away,

where I know that in their bin they will not

freeze in the winter, over-heat in the sum-

mer, and wont become over-saturated or

emaciated because they are on my watch.

About every three months I harvest the

worm compost, which is called gardeners

gold. I first spend a couple of weeks

migrating the critters from one side of

the bin (dirty) to the other (fresh fixings),

and then I hand pick out the stragglers. I

drop them into their clean new digs, where

their friends, who are already hard at work

eating kitchen scraps and expelling new

castings which Ill harvest next time.

Youve read the story, now watch the

video of The Big Worm Migration on myDebs Big Backyard blog. You can watch

our video at http://www.lymanstreetpro-

ductions.com/apps/blog.

And then they feed my plants

Find out moreI rst dug into this green practice by read-

ing The Chicago Home Composting Program

Brochure. I have further cultivated it with a

few other sources:

A popular book: Worms Eat My Garbage,

by Mary Appelhof An educational resource: http://ur-

banext.illinois.edu/worms/

An online worm supplier: Uncle Jims

Worm Farm at http://unclejimswormfarm.

com

Yes, worms do eat my garbage

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A

s a girl growing up in rural

Wisconsin, Tara Schaafsma, 39,

loved gathering edible berries

from a nearby woods, and har-

vesting flowers, herbs, fruits

and vegetables from her par-

ents large backyard gardens.

With the comfort of that

childhood memory intact, seven years ago,

when she and her spouse, David Schaafsma,

settled into their quaint, three-bedroom

home in the southeast corner of Oak Park,

the mom of three young kids wanted to rec-

reate the joys of country living for them in

their new postage stamp size backyard.

One of my favorite things as a child was

to walk back into the woods and get berries.

We had blackberries. We had black rasp-berries. We had red raspberries, grapes,

gooseberries and lots of other plants, says

Schaafsma, who is also an electrician.

So, I brought back gooseberries from my

grandfathers farm, and planted those in

the northwest corner of my back yard.

Otherwise, since my kids dont live in the

woods, they would never have the child-

hood experience I had.

From there she planted blackberries from

a catalogue, then red raspberry bushes she

dug up from her sisters patch in Wiscon-

sin. Then came the black raspberries, an-

other familial gifting, and two store-bought

grape vines that now swell over a wooden

arbor she built.

Last summer at the Oak Park Farmers

Market, her middle son, Henry, spotted

strawberry plants, and his mom caved in.

This is my first year to experiment with

them, she says.

The bonanza of berry growing really

took off two years ago when a microburst

that hit southeast Oak Park took out a bigtree in Schaafsmas backyard. That storm

transformed her growing space from shade

to full-sun.

An orchard grows in a tiny Oak Park yardBerry nice

Courtesy of TARA SCHAAFSMA

A second-oor view of Tara Schaafsmas garden last Spring.

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Tara Schaafsma in her backyard garden on Lyman Avenue.

Now, in that trees stead, is planted a little giant apple

tree, which last summer produced its first two apples.

So, in her modularly designed gardens, with a yard that

still offers spaces to play, she enthusiastically grows a variety

of afterschool pick-and-eat snacks her kids, Harry, Henry

and Lyra can eat straight from the vine: rhubarb, mint, toma-

toes, peas, pole beans, and yes, all those ripening berries.All this is tastefully installed against a visual tapestry

of in-the-ground blooms and the colorful flowers she

vines on two fences wisteria, trumpet vine and clema-

tis she hopes will eventually meet and weave on the

chain link fence to the north, and roses and morning

glories on the other side.

I love to eat the berries, and so do my kids, so much

so that I wouldnt have it any other way.

Meanwhile, growing up her deck is a high cranberry

bush she got from her great aunt.

Its only a foot tall so far, but I am hoping it grows

up as tall as my deck, she says. We will probably eat

those, but the birds love them, so I am hoping to getmore wild birds, maybe some grosbeaks for us to look

at. That would be nice.

I am hoping to get more wild birds, maybesome grosbeaks for us to look at.

That would be nice.TARA SCHAAFSMAN

OP gardener

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Tim Leemi nishinngpa ntn m hiiss sserrres

on a ar alleley scenen si his bbas ent studio.An alley een Lym n

n A ss iinAn ll y een rov

n Avenu .e.

V D IEPIERINI II/I/SSS at otoo rgrapp ere


D

uring the week, as he commutes

to Chicago on the el, Oak Park

lawyer, painter and printmaker

Tim Leeming, 51, is drawn to

walk the alleys to take a back

door view of the architecture in

Oak Park.

Most mornings, en route to the

Green Line stop at South Boulevard and Oak

Park Avenue, Leeming takes pause to snap

pictures of interesting cityscapes, and later

addresses that subject in an original oil paint-

ing. Among his favorite alleys is the one that

spills out onto Oak Park Avenue across the

street from Grape Leaves Restaurant.

Near the Blue Line stop at Austin, the al-

ley between Lyman and Humphrey Avenueis another corridor that catches his eye.

There, he says, it is its interesting embank-

ments that cause him to stop and look.

These two paintings, and eight others,

comprise the new collection of oil paint-

ings he calls, Alley Side. The exhibition

debuted at Harrison East Music Studio at

600 Harrison St. in Oak Park last Fridayand runs through the end of May.

Private viewings are available by appoint-

ment via the artist at [email protected].

Painting local

Leeming says he takes inspiration from

the works of the late 19th century Russian

Impressionists, as well as the Ash Can

School. It was an artistic movement in the

United States during the early twentieth cen-

tury that is best known for works portraying

scenes of daily life in New York City, often in

the citys poorer neighborhoods.Similarly, he says he tries to capture the

sometimes overlooked aspects of pedes-

trian walk-bys, such as the monumental

architectural forms that when painted

expand the visual perspective to include

texture, and ragged edges.

What some folks take for granted as onlythe entree to a parking pad or garage, he

says is an alley canyon that is punctuated

at regular intervals by telephone poles,

dumpsters and garbage cans all of which

are larger and darker up close, and smaller,

higher and then fading away in the dis-

tance. This aspect for him adds interest.

What defines a must-savor scene is when

the backdoor runway possesses a bright

side and a shaded side, where the shadows

race forward or back, triangulating the

surfaces, and closing towards a central

point, he says.Since November 2012 when he agreed to

launch this project, it has become his latest

art obsession.

I would regularly exasperate friends and

family when driving by and stopping mid-

block to consider the merits of an alley-

canyon. I kept post-it notes to jot down

addresses, says Leeming, an attorney by

trade who also has an extensive fine arts

education from the University of Illinois,

The School of the Art Institute of C hicago,

and recently, the Palette and Chisel Acad-

emy of Chicago.

However, not every alley is worthy of

note. Its mostly the backside roads with

alley heads that hold distinctive landmarks

on their horizon, he says -- a church steeple,

an incinerator stack, things with an edge.

With the encouragement of friends at the

Oak Park Art League, I set out to create this

set of Oak Park Alley paintings, he says.

I have considered most of the alleys here,those running East/West, and those North/

South. (I have even found a diagonal section),

and I have enjoyed painting all of them.

An artist considers Oak Parks back doors

Oak Park alley side up


9/12




As Sandy Lentz settles into being

a newly elected member of

the Park District of Oak Park

board, back on her 800 block of

north Humphrey, this spring,

summer and fall her garden

will be calling her home.

It seems that for about 27

years now, Lentz has optimized every

square foot of viable growing space in her

and her husband Davids standard 25-foot x

150-foot northeast Oak Park lot.

And now, in spring, its time to get back

into that soil.From the street to the alley, Lentzs yard is

a sustainable, colorful and textured palette

of perennials, annuals, vegetables, fruits,

trees, shrubs and eco-friendly and drought-

resistant native plants.

Specifically, running along the chain link

fence, from the back porch, to the alley, are

the right plants in the right space, which is

the mantra for strong growth.

The shade-loving Heucheras, and Hel-

lebore kick off her vegetative chorus line.

In the middle where full sun filters in, she

has planted a couple of peony trees thatproduce a glorious profusion of about 30 to

35 white blooms that are as big as her hand.

Beyond that is a Little Joe Pye, which is a

nativare, she says, so it doesnt get as big

as the ones indigenous to the prairie.

Interspersed in that strip of growing

space, she says she tucks in annual flowers

for more color.

In my garden I dont have anything that

blooms for two weeks, and then is a green

lump the rest of the year, says the former

president of the Friends of the Oak Park

Conservatory (FOPCON). I dont have

enough space to do that, so the plants I

have, must ear n their keep. There is always

something new and interesting to learn

about, and look at in my garden. There is

always a list, and if one of my plants dies,

I dont mourn it because there are usually

about 6 plants in line waiting for the spot.

Making every square foot count

To add more interest, Lentz companions

plants, putting accent veggies and herbs

alongside her tried and true perennials,

which she does stand back and enjoy.My garden is not the same two years

running, she says. That is what makes

gardening fun, trying out new practices,

new plants, new varieties of vegetables.

To better utilize her small space, this year

she is adding two raised beds she plans to

build herself from planks of cedar to grow

the veggies she and her spouse enjoy.

Gardening is so good for the inside of my

head, says Lentz. I really like to sit in the

vegetable garden and feel the sun on my back,and my hands in the earth...to pick something,

and bring it in warm from the sun, and feed it

to my family, now that feels really good.

Spring into Spring Saturday, May 4, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

2013 Oak Park Conservatory Plant Sale

615 Gareld St.

Sunday, May 19, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Cheney Mansion Spring Plant Sale220 N. Euclid Ave.

A veteran gardenershares her gardening

A garden thats good for

the inside of your head

I really like to sit in the vegetablegarden and feel the sun on my back,

and my hands in the earth...to picksomething, and bring it in warm

from the sun, and feed it to myfamily, now that feels really good.

SANDY LENTZ


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10/12



Fifteen months after Cheryl Muoz,

36, and Jenny Jocks Stelzer, 37,broadcast the first seeds of their

idea across Oak Park, it seems that

the Sugar Beet Cooperative has

germinated and is taking root.

In April, about 100 food-loving

locals attended the first official

member meeting. Each participant had

paid a one-time co-op membership fee of

$250 per family, which can be paid in install-

ments and is refundable if for some reason

the group dissolves, Muoz says.

Purchasing a membership in our co-op

is buying a share in our future grocery

business, she says. We are not spending

that money. Rather, we are building equity

to show banks that we are real.

She adds that members will also receive

dividends, discounts on groceries, and

discounts on event tickets.

Further proof of progress, perhaps, is

that Sugar Beet recently filed documenta-

tion to secure nonprofit status, and has

affiliated itself with a Chicago-based fiscal

agent that facilitates the processing of tax-

deductible donations. In addition, Sugar

Beet was awarded a grant that will fund a

feasibility study designed to help it broaden

its board of directors, as well as do more

educational programming, including farm

tours, and a plethora of other community

outreach efforts.

For example, besides the agrarian educa-

tion they currently provide to schools, groups

and individuals in Oak Park, Muoz points

out that they are also involved with a sustain-

able community garden with St. Joseph

Services in the Austin neighborhood to teach

more people about seed-to-plate gardening.

So now, the group is involved in these

sustainability issues in Oak Park and on

the West Side, she says.

Their aim is to lay the foundation for

building a new community-managed gro-

cery store in Oak Park by next summer. Mu-

oz describes the brick and mortar venture

as a year-round farmers market, of sorts,

that will sell food directly from local farms

and producers, provide community outreach

and education about the importance of sup-

porting farmers and the local economy, and

include a commercial kitchen where people

can take classes on cooking, preserving, and

gather to talk and eat food together.


Cheryl Munoz, co-founder of the Sugar Beet Co-Op, and Jill Niewoehner, chair of theedible garden tour.

Sugar Beet Cooperative grows range of ventures

The Sugar Beet Cooperatives 2nd Annual

Edible Garden Tour is set for July 27, and this

year it will feature 10 local gardens, plus a

family-f riendly day-of activities, and, a ra e.Link to http://www.sugarbeetcoop.com, to

stay tuned for additional details.

Have no yard at all? Consider growing mush-

rooms: Shiitake Mushroom inoculation, May

18, http://mamagrows.com.

We are building a community around urban agriculture. The idea is that we will all garden together, help each other do it, and in doing that, transformthis community by sharing our produce and what we have learned from each other, with everyone else. CHERYL MUNOZ, Co-founder of the Sugar Beet Cooperative

G A R D E N 2 1 3

Making urban agriculture real in Oak Park

Mangowood bird-house, $39.For the Birds,

Brookeld.

Keep squirrelsand birds awayfrom your harvest.Bobble head

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Moss ShoePlanter, $15. Green

Home Experts,Oak Park.

I garden, thereforeI am mug, $12. Bee

Home and Garden,Oak Park.

For an en-

lightened garden -Buddha, $60. BeeHome and Garden,Oak Park.

Grow your owndecorative gourds,

$1.29 each. SchauersHardware, Forest Park

Create a gorgeoushanging garden with

these colorful WoolyPockets, $15.

Route 66 Aquaponics,Brookeld.

Create a gorgeous hanging gardenwith these colorful Wooly Pockets, $15.Route 66 Aquaponics, Brookeld.

Compiled by Sarah Corbin at [email protected]


11/12


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