gardening | kimberly ah

Mar 03 2015

Garfield Park Conservatory

On Saturday, I went to the Garfield Park Conservatory for the first time in my nineteen years in Chicagoland. The visit was prompted by Katie’s Instagram last week. She called it her “annual February desperate to see/smell something green” visit. Lucky for Karen, Peggy and I, the Spring Flower Show, “Sun Showers” just opened. It was the perfect antidote to the cold, snowy, dark, dreary days of winter. We went on a rare sunny day. The sunbeams were pouring in and the conservatory was warm and humid. It felt like we went on a little vacation. We took our coats off and walked around breathing in the fresh dirt and the bright flower fragrance. Here’s a little peek at some of the flowers… The yellow umbrellas were so cheerful! I am going to make many efforts to go back as often as I can. The conservatory is less than five miles from my house–only a few train stops away!! I can’t wait to go back again and see what new flowers emerge as the flower show goes on until May 10th.

Inside another room of the conservatory was a quote by William Cowper’s The Task, which I think captures the feeling of our day the best,

“Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.

Unconscious of a less propitious clime

There blooms exotic beauty, warm and snug,

While the winds whistle and the snows descend.”

I’m definitely thinking spring and gardening!

Tagged adventures, garden, gardening

Jan 07 2015

4 Comments

Christmas, gardening, snail mail

Pretty Seed Packets

My pen pal Danielle sent me these fantastic seed packets for Christmas. They are from the Hudson Valley Seed Library as part of their special Art Packs series. Various artists’ works are used on the seed packet, making them perfect for gifts! (Danielle, you know me so well!) She sent Isis Candy Shop tomatoes, packet art done by Amy Ross. The other one, Tender Green Komatsuna, features a painting by Molly Rausch, famous for her postage stamp paintings. If you look closely, you can see that the base of the painting is a vintage Japanese postage stamp, and Molly, with her imagination and a teeny, tiny paintbrush, added the surroundings. You can see the entire painting here…isn’t it fantastic?

This gift blends all of my favorite things: mail, postage stamps and gardening! And, especially when windchills are hitting the -30°F mark, I’m really dreaming of gardening today.

Tagged Christmas, forest park, garden, gardening, holidays, Japan, snail mail

Sep 24 2014

7 Comments

adventures, Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening, summer manifesto

Plot #6: I Picked A Loofah

I finally picked a loofah! I’m not sure it’s really ready, but this particular one kept falling out of our plot and I was nervous it would get stepped on. Plus, when I picked it, it had a giant slug on it (which I touched by accident and that is not a feeling my memory will be erasing anytime soon.) It was the lightest-colored*, most hollow sounding, biggest loofah on the vines, so I figured I would sacrifice it to see how “ready” the others might be.

So the next step is to cut into the experimental loofah to see if it’s “sponge-worthy.” (Sorry, I couldn’t resist a tiny Seinfeld shout-out. Also, totally different “sponge-worthy.”)

I will report back soon, along with some fall garden shots. Our tomatoes are really slowing down, but with the crazy gorgeous weather we’re having this week, I’m thinking maybe a few more Juliets will emerge. Cheers to a perfect early fall!

*I should note that the loofah looks really green in this picture but it’s significantly lighter than that in real life…maybe Presley’s eyes are bringing out the greenness?

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

Sep 15 2014

1 Comment

adventures, Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening, summer manifesto

Plot #6: The Loofah Takeover

This is the south end of our plot, where the flowers and the Brandywine tomatoes reside. And yes, that’s a loofah vine growing all the way over there. (The loofahs were planted on the northeast corner of our four-by-eight plot.) I’m not so worried, since our tomatoes are almost done, but man, next year we really do need to plan our plot better! Back in the north end of the plot, you can see the loofahs are overflowing outside of our raised bed…I’ve been tucking them back into the border, but some of the loofahs are cozily making themselves at home. They sound a tiny bit more hollow than they did last week, and their color is lightening ever so slightly, so hopefully, we can pick them soon. (I know I keep saying this, but really…I have no idea when the perfect time for picking is!) It has been really cold here the past few days–sweater weather, sock weather, jacket weather cold. I’m personally loving it, but I’m hoping it means long fall and not early winter. Yikes!

How is your garden growing? Are things slowing down?

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

Sep 05 2014

4 Comments

gardening, homemaking, Simple Summer Suppers, what's for dinner

Summer Fresh Salsa

I’ve been on the obvious end-of-summer mission to use up our tomato crop. In the last week, I’ve eaten tomato sandwiches, BLTs, roasted tomato caprese salad, panzanella, plain ol’ caprese salad, and I’ve added tomatoes to every other meal I’ve made or eaten. And still…there are tomatoes.

Since we have so many Juliets (which are slightly larger than grape tomatoes and are not well-suited for sandwiches because of their tiny size) I decided to make salsa last weekend. I started with this recipe and made some tweaks to give it the freshest flavor possible.

Summer Fresh Salsa

24-30 Juliet tomatoes (or 6-7 Romas), chopped

2-3 Jalapeño, seeded and diced

1 red, yellow or orange pepper, diced

1/2 red onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

handful cilantro, chopped

1-2 limes, juiced

1 Tablespoon olive oil

Sea salt, to tasteChop and stir the vegetables and herbs together. Add olive oil, salt and one lime. Taste and add more lime or salt as needed. (I usually use two limes because I like things citrusy.)

This salsa is very fresh, but if you prefer something more spicy, you can add chili peppers, chili powder some of the jalapeño seeds to heat things up. Try to make it ahead of time and chill it in the fridge to allow the flavors to meld. Isn’t it a pretty salsa? I love the colors and the crunch and the garlic and the citrus…and of course the tomatoes. Those perfect garden Juliet gems really make a good salsa. I’m so thankful for our bountiful harvest!

Tagged food, garden, gardening, homemaking, summer

Sep 02 2014

6 Comments

adventures, Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening, summer manifesto

Plot #6: Is That A Loofah In My Garden?

It isn’t that I didn’t believe the articles I read about loofah vines’ ferocious growth, it’s that I underestimated what that really meant. I’m afraid that our loofah vine is creeping into our neighbor’s plot, and could overtake the entire community garden. I think, now that summer is in full swing (finally!), I might have to go to the garden daily to reign those crazy vines in and retrain them back into our plot. But it’s totally worth it if we can actually bring the five giant loofah home. Yes, five!! I’m hoping they all make it–safely from bugs and nibbling rodents–to the stage when we can harvest them and dry them out as sponges. I’ve been using this resource as guidance. I’ve never been so excited about a gardening experiment. If all goes well, do you think it would be weird if I gave sponges to everyone for Christmas? (I guess I shouldn’t be getting ahead of myself here.) In addition to the five gallon bucket-full of tomatoes we harvested last week, I picked a few limas. I think there are probably more to be picked, but it’s hard to find them amongst the overgrown tomatoes and the loofah vines. I guess garden planning is not my strong suit. My tomato harvesting was cut a bit short the other day by this cat-sized grasshopper (small exaggeration). He was protecting a large patch of ripe tomatoes, which I left untouched because I kept picturing him leaping into my face. Thankfully the grasshopper found a new home when we went back to harvest more tomatoes yesterday. (Oh and yesterday I touched a slug…gardening is gross!!)

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

Aug 22 2014

Flowers, Flooding & Failures

I had another post planned for today, but it’s as dark as a cave here and I couldn’t get a proper picture. It rained several inches around here last night. I was rudely shocked out of a good sleep at 2AM by my phone and its stupid loud weather alert. It took 2.5 episodes of Roseanne to fall back asleep, mainly because my heart had to start beating again after the surprise of the alarm.

I went outside this morning to check on the flowers–everything is completely soaked out there–and I found this teeny, tiny flower on my Cypress Vine. Isn’t it the sweetest little thing? There are supposed to be pink, white and red flowers eventually. I cannot wait!

The huge rain made my portulaca explode. I’ve decided that next year (yes, I’m already planning my flowers for next year) I will be planting more portulaca in all the colors of the rainbow.

As far as failure goes…well, have you looked at the calendar lately? Summer is almost over. I’m failing my Summer Manifesto. I still haven’t tried three new cocktails with herbs from our gardens or three new tomato recipes. I haven’t taken more walks or really rediscovered Chicago. And, while we have had a few special guests for Hasegawa Happy Hours, we haven’t had enough of them. I know the US thinks of Labor Day as the end of summer, but as long as we have tomatoes and a garden, it’s still summer to me. Before I start planning fall cocktails and soups and balcony parties, I’m determined to at least mix up a few herbal gin drinks and soak up these long days while I can.

Tagged garden, gardening, homemaking, summer

Aug 19 2014

5 Comments

adventures, gardening

Mom’s Arbor

For Mother’s Day this year, my dad built my mom a fantastic Asian-inspired arbor to frame the steps to their backyard. He finished it in July and Naoto and I got a chance to see it in person over the weekend. When we were growing up, our yard was pretty plain, mostly grass and a giant vegetable garden. Now that my parents are semi-retired, they spend a lot of time gardening and collecting a variety of perennial flowers and greenery. The arbor adds a little architectural touch to their otherwise free-flowing garden. They found the design for the arbor in a thrifted old woodworking book that is full of projects for yards and patios. It’s amazing the gems you can find in seemingly outdated books! Not that we would ever want to make Presley jealous, but we kind of fell in love with my parents’ neighborhood cat, Fred. Fred isn’t really his name. My dad just calls him that. He originally belonged to my parents’ neighbor but now just kind of divides his time among the houses on their block. He was super laid back, fell in love with Naoto and charmed us into petting him every time we went outside. If we didn’t think Presley would eat him, we might have brought him home with us! But as my dad said…”Fred wouldn’t stand a chance around Presley.”

Aug 11 2014

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

1 Comment

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?