Forest Park, Oak Park | kimberly ah

Aug 14 2014

Forest Park, Oak Park, in my library, In My Neighborhood

In My Neighborhood: Little Free Library

I’ve been reading about Little Free Libraries popping up in cities all across the country. It’s an intriguing idea–build a tiny library, fill it with a few books and let people give and take on the honor system. It’s so community-driven and idealist…two things I love.

Imagine my surprise when Little Free Library recently popped up in front of a tiny house in my own neighborhood!

This house is only a block north of me, and one that I walk by almost every day on my way to get a coffee or go to work. It’s in a neighborhood of both houses and apartments a couple of blocks away from the train station. If you ask me, it’s a perfect neighborhood for something like this. People can pick up and drop off books on their way to their morning trains. Hopefully some of the neighborhood kids can find some titles in there eventually. The little library house is surrounded by solar-operated twinkle lights, but I haven’t seen it all lit up at night yet. I don’t see any titles inside that I want to borrow yet (I am a huge user of our public library), but I have a few good classics on my shelf that I’m going to drop off later this week. Do you have a Little Free Library in your neighborhood? There’s a giant list of them here and a map here.

Speaking of reading…I’m going to go outside now and finish my book for book group this weekend. We’re reading Two Years Before the Mast. What an adventure!

Tagged books, forest park

Aug 11 2014

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Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening, summer manifesto

Plot #6: Brandywines are Back!

And the tomatoes are coming!! Last night in our latest check of our neglected community garden plot #6, we found a bounty of tomatoes! Three nice Brandywines, a couple more Juliets and a couple dozen Yellow Pears all made it safely into the harvesting bucket and ready for Hasegawa Happy Hour tomorrow night. I found a new salad recipe that I’d like to try with the yellow guys and I think panzanella will be the perfect plan for the Brandywines. Most of today will be spent searching for a cocktail recipe that will complement the tomato feast. Look at our loofah! We have several of these little guys running along the mess of vines. Thanks to Mr. Brownthumb for helping us spot them and for hand modeling. Now we just need to hope that they don’t get eaten by mice before they are big enough to eat or dry out for bath time. (I’m still not sure I’m brave enough to eat one!)Even though my careless flower plantings took up way more space than I had anticipated, seeing those crazy orange and blue blooms in our plot makes me ridiculously happy. I promise there are plenty of tomatoes behind that mess of flowers!And speaking of flowers, I can’t resist sharing this way-taller-than-me sunflower in a neighboring community garden plot. I feel like I should do a community garden tour for you in the coming weeks. So many plots are overgrown and overflowing with amazing produce. It’s fun to be learning and sharing this hobby with so many others.

Tagged food, forest park, garden, gardening, summer

Aug 04 2014

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Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening, homemaking, summer manifesto

Plot #6: The Season’s First Tomatoes

We discovered three really ripe Juliet tomatoes in the garden yesterday!! They probably could have been picked a little sooner, but I didn’t get over there much last week.

Now’s the time though…now’s the time for going to the garden every day or so to check for little red gems on the vines.

Our four Juliet plants are all dripping with green tomatoes. It’s going to be another bumper crop this year. What you see above is just one branch of one part of a plant! It seems so weird that three random tomatoes were red and all the others look so very green…but that’s the way it was last year, too. All of the Brandywines and yellow pear tomatoes are still green, too. We are going to have to wait a little longer for those. Just like last year, we have some blight happening. We’ve tried to cut off most of the yellowed leaves, but I need to go again this week and do a deeper cleaning of everything. Have you had this problem with your tomatoes? Peggy suggested adding eggshells to our soil when we plant our tomatoes next year. Thankfully, the fruits are undamaged so far and most of the plants are still looking healthy otherwise. Remember how I randomly planted a few flowers from the seed bank in our community garden shed? Well, the flowers–cosmos and bachelor buttons–have grown as tall as the tomatoes and have taken over their little corner of the garden. I’ve been cutting a few for our kitchen counter and leaving some of the floppy ones for the butterflies. And speaking of flowers, my first Morning Glory appeared yesterday morning! I planted five types of climbers in June and they are all finally starting to vine. The Morning Glories and Moonflowers are the furthest along and the Cardinal Climbers and Cypress Vines are close behind. I’m nursing the single Black-Eyed Susan vine along. It’s struggling. And, I’m finally getting more blooms on my Trader Joe’s hibiscus. It’s so cheerful, isn’t it?

Tagged forest park, garden, gardening, home, homemaking, summer

Jul 28 2014

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adventures, Forest Park, Oak Park, some stuff about me

Japanese Class

On a complete whim, I signed up for a beginner Japanese class this fall. I’m taking it at the Oak Park River Forest High School through Triton College’s adult continuing education program.

As an adult, I feel like a total language dummy. I confidently took four years of French in high school…I was pretty good. There were only two of us in French 4 (Stacey D & me!) and I could converse and write well. I had a French pen pal, too. We lost touch in college, unfortunately, and by then I was writing her in English anyway because I stupidly did not take French in college. (Regrets…I have a few.)

But when it comes to Japanese, I’m convinced I will never learn. Someone said I’d probably know the most in our class, but I seriously doubt it. Naoto has tried to teach me phrases and either I cannot pronounce them correctly to save my life OR I forget them within moments of learning. Maybe I’m too old…or maybe (hopefully!) I just need a structured class to help make things stick.

So I dug out my old (children’s) Japanese vocabulary book for the occasion. I’ve had it for years, long before I even traveled to Japan. I think the next logical step is to make some flashcards.

Whether I catch on or not, I’m really excited to take the class. It was only $140 and it goes from the end of August through the middle of November, and it will be a good opportunity for me to meet some new people and to hopefully learn some basics for our trip next spring.

I’m really hoping we can devote a whole session to donut flavors and ordering at Mister Donut, but maybe that’s wishful thinking?

Tagged adventures, books, forest park, I *heart* Japan, Japan

Jul 17 2014

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Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening, summer manifesto

Plot #6: The Garden is a Forest (Again)

I’ve been sick and Naoto has been working like a dog (every day since he’s returned home from Japan) so the garden has been a bit neglected. I finally went yesterday afternoon. Boy, was it a perfect day for gardening! Our weather has been unseasonably cool, getting down to the 50s at night and into the 70s during the day. It’s the perfect weather to me.

When I saw our little Plot #6, I couldn’t believe how overgrown it had gotten in just over a week! Even the smallest tomatoes were huge, growing into their neighboring tomatoes. And, as you can maybe see from the top picture, the tomatoes are again spilling out into the walkway. I’m going to have to fix that this weekend to make sure none of my tomatoes get stepped on. Both Brandywines have some fruit on them. And all of the Juliets and the Yellow Pear are producing too…no red (or yellow) ones yet though…I can hardly wait! I harvested almost all of the peas, which is a good thing because that will open some space for this guy. The loofah is growing out of control. (This is not a surprise…yet it was still surprising.) I had to unwind it from a tomato and from some of the peas. I think we *may* have waited too long to lasso that crazy grower!

Now that I’m feeling better and Naoto (hopefully) is going back to working normal hours, I’m hoping we can spend time fixing up the garden together this weekend.

Tagged forest park, garden, gardening, summer

Jun 26 2014

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Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening

Plot #6: Rapid Rain, Rapid Growth

Naoto and I went to the garden last night for the first time in a week. It’s been raining every day here since my last visit and while I should have popped over between rain storms, I didn’t. I’m kind of glad I waited though…I almost didn’t recognize the garden when I saw it! The peas, which were only about three inches tall last week, are now at least a foot tall. I couldn’t believe it! There are plenty of flowers but no pods yet…soon! I “built” my pea teepee and untangled the pea patch. Hopefully the bamboo stakes will promote better growth and less of a pea jungle. Remember the lima seeds I carelessly stuck in the ground last Tuesday? I think most of them came up and they are about three inches tall now. They are kind of…rough looking…something is eating them. We had a similar problem last year, but we still had limas so I’m hopeful for this season’s crop, too. The loofah are really taking off, too. This is causing some anxiety. What to do with those crazy vines? Our tomato plants are kind of hit or miss. The ones we planted right away are all looking good and have flowers or tiny tomatoes on them like the baby Brandywine above. And our Juliet has a lot of blossoms and tiny tomatoes growing as well. But the two Juliets we planted last are looking pretty weak. The rain and wind seemed to beat them down. We caged them and tied up the other plants to the big bamboo stakes and are hoping they all come through in the end.

But maybe I won’t have to open a roadside stand after all.

Tagged food, forest park, garden, gardening, summer

Jun 20 2014

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Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening

Plot #6: Let There Be Loofah

We neglected the garden last weekend because of false rain predictions and unexpected schedule changes. I thought by the time I visited Plot #6 on Tuesday that everything would be dead. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. Some of the tomatoes were a bit droopy, but nothing a little shot of water couldn’t fix. And our peas and flowers looked great. But who cares about all that… WE HAVE LOOFAH!!! I wasn’t expecting to find anything on the loofah mound and I yelped with delight when I saw these. Then I yelled “LOOOOOFAHHHHH!” in the middle of the empty community garden. We’ve never gotten to the plant portion of loofah growth before! It seems that allllll of the loofah seeds I soaked and planted came up…which means I might have to thin them a bit. But I’m really excited. And worried. We didn’t think anything would happen, so I’m not really sure we left enough room for an actual vining plant. Details, details…I’m just going to bask in the loofah celebration for a little longer and worry about building a loofah trellis when Naoto gets home. (Oh and any loofah advice you may have is completely welcome!) Our crazy pea patch is growing nicely. I planned to build our pea teepee on Monday, but I forgot the twine at home. Instead of building, I found some leftover lima bean seeds in the bottom of my gardening bag and planted them next to the peas. I might regret that decision later. Maybe I’ll just name this gardening season Planting on a Whim.

Tagged food, forest park, garden, gardening, summer

Jun 12 2014

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Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening

Plot #6 Progress

Our garden is growing! On Sunday we went down to the garden to plant our last two tomato plants. (My dad gave us four Juliet plants and we couldn’t find anyone to take the extra two, so now we have four Juliets. If they all live and all produce as many tomatoes as our last single Juliet plant did, I will be opening a road side stand this summer.) I need to go buy some more bamboo stakes. Our peas (shown above) are growing nicely, and soon I will need to build my little pea teepee so they don’t grow into a big jungle like they did last year. I also soaked some extra loofah seeds overnight and planted them on National Donut Day…still nothing. I’m sure that the cool days and nights we’ve had recently didn’t contribute to the poor loofah’s growth either since they tend to like hot weather. I’m still holding out hope that we will see a little sprout soon. On Sunday, we met our friends Laura and Scott at the garden for the first time this season. Laura planted some delicious radishes last month and we tried her harvest…it made us regret not planting any radishes. So, maybe I’m going today to buy a seed packet or two…

There’s just something about gardening that turns me into an optimist!

P.S. Happy Loving Day! In case you missed it, here’s a post I wrote about our experiences with interracial marriage last year.

Tagged diy, food, forest park, garden, gardening

Jun 10 2014

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Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening, home is a 1970s apartment, homemaking, summer manifesto

Our Blooming Balcony

Our balcony is open for relaxing! And honestly, that’s all I’ve been doing lately because the weather has been gorgeous! I bought some throw pillows at Target for the couch and the chairs. They make it cozier than ever to read a book or take a nap outside.

I finally finished all of my planting and re-potting. Once the seeds grow, hopefully there will be more flowers and vines. I have a tiny herb garden growing behind the couch. We have two kinds of mint, basil, thyme and lavender growing along with the only two annuals that made it through the polar vortex last winter. And, in a rebellious move that is probably breaking some sort of condo ordinance, I have several pots of seedlings situated outside of the railing for maximum sun and rain exposure. I’ve planted parsley, zinnias, lettuce and four types of vining flowers. (I may be in over my head with the amount of vining flowers I’ve planted…if the building falls down under the weight of morning glories, I take full responsibility.) While I’ve planted a lot of seeds this year, I took a big shortcut with my hanging pots. I usually put together my own pots, but this year I put together two and bought four: the portulaca above, two ivy geraniums, and another fuchsia. I repotted my old geraniums with some new in one pot…I’m hoping it fills out a bit. Last year, I stuck with geraniums because I knew I could make them work. This year, I’m branching out so the pressure is on to keep everything alive! The fuchsia is bright pink with purple centers…I know I said I hate purple, but I really love this plant! This is my original fuchsia. I filled out the pot with a vinca vine that is really taking off. Fuchsias are sun/shade plants so I’m really hoping the north side of the balcony is just right for them. So far they seem to be doing well, growing tons of buds and blooms. I wasn’t going to plant petunias this year because I tend to kill them by August, but I fell in love with these two varieties and decided to plop them together in one pot. The deep purple ones are Queen Bees and they are supposed to have yellow centers, though I haven’t seen any yellow yet. And the tiny peach ones are Mochaccinos. I love the tiny peach flowers. I also bought a little wicker cube to contain all of my gardening supplies. It’s nice to have them out of sight and the top of the cube can act as a little side table during dinners outside. On the black table in between the “living” and “dining” areas, I have a hibiscus and my clover (the clover lives in the kitchen during the winter). Some of my seedlings will move over here eventually.

So that’s the balcony. It’s not perfect but it really does feel like an extension of the living room these days. I’m just hoping I can squeeze in every moment possible outside before the heat and humidity takes over!

Tagged decorating, forest park, garden, gardening, home, home improvement, homemaking, summer

May 31 2014

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Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening

Garden Beginnings

We’ve been slowly planting our garden plot over the past couple of weeks. So far we’ve planted two Brandywine tomatoes, two Juliet tomatoes, one yellow pear tomato, peas, flowers and a loofah. Our loofah didn’t make it last year but we thought we’d try it again anyway. So far, the seeds have done nothing. Again.

We decided to skip the root vegetables since ours failed last year. (The beets didn’t do anything and the daikon were so skinny they were almost nonexistent.) Tomatoes and peas and flowers…and maybe a cucumber or some lettuce. We’ll see. We still have about a third of our plot left to work with.

Today I’m working on planting some climbers on the balcony and trying to come up with some sort of notebook to hold my seed packets for reference during the season. Last year I thought I’d be better about keeping a garden journal and I failed miserably. This year…it’s going to be different. (Hopefully.)

Happy gardening!!

Tagged adventures, food, forest park, garden, gardening, summer