summer | kimberly ah

Jun 13 2016

Plot #6 for 2016

In between jet lag naps and unwrapping all of my stationery from Japan, I started our garden for the summer! I planted almost everything mid-May and then added a couple of things last week. So far, so good, but I really do need to cut back my chive plant before it takes over! I clearly didn’t learn my tomato jungle lesson from last year…I planted six tomato plants! I just kept seeing new varieties I wanted to try! I planted both pink and red Brandywines, a Juliet, a Golden Girl, a Cherokee Purple, and a Mr. Stripey. The Juliet already has a couple of tomatoes growing! In between the tomatoes, I planted peas, lima beans, edamame, bush beans, Japanese scallions, lettuce, parsley, thyme, and basil all from seed. And then on impulse, I added a rosemary plant and a sweet banana pepper plant. I wanted to try a couple of cutting flowers from seed, but I haven’t gotten my act together, so those might have to wait until next year. As it is, things are looking pretty full. All of the seeds are coming up and it really is just a matter of time before the tomatoes are taking over.

I love this time of year when everything is all tidy in its place. (At least in the garden it is…my apartment is a whole different story!)

How is your garden growing?

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

Mar 16 2016

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adventures, Forest Park, gardening, In My Neighborhood

Swapping Seeds 2016

seed swap, Forest Park Community Garden Seed Swap On Sunday, I spent the afternoon with fellow gardeners at the Forest Park Community Garden Seed Swap. It was my second seed swap and I think I walked away with some fun options for Plot 6 this spring.

I’ve been thinking a lot about our garden plot and trying to convince myself to be a better planner and to not allow things to get jungle-y this year…but let’s face it…if I can’t stop myself from wanting to plant everything, what hope do I have?

I decided to plant some lettuces on the balcony this summer to see how they do. The past couple of summers, I’ve missed out on some of our planted lettuces because the bunnies “harvested” it before I did. Having the lettuces on the balcony will solve that problem. (Though I do have a rogue squirrel visitor on the balcony now…) I picked out some Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce (not pictured because it didn’t come in a beautiful envelope), Komatsuna, and some Wasabi Arugula at the swap.

I also grabbed some thyme and oregano, which will probably get planted in both balcony pots and in our garden plot. And, since I’m a glutton for punishment, I grabbed some golden beets, which are so delicious and impossible for me to grow…Sigh…

In the flower department, I picked out some nasturtiums since they are supposedly easy to grow and I love the bright orange-red. And, because I love a good climber, I decided to try the Passion Flower climbers, mostly because they looked so interesting! Mike Nowak, Forest Park Community Garden Seed Swap In addition to swapping seeds, we listened as Mike Nowak presented about his own backyard garden and about the community garden he and his Logan Square neighbors built together in an empty lot formerly known as a drug dealing corner. Not only did they rid their neighborhood of drug deals, but he also met his neighbors and introduced gardening to kids nearby. It was a really great speech that made me think of the kind of impact a community garden can have.

It was a great way to spend a rainy Sunday. It’s been a warm spring, so I’m hopeful that gardening is just around the corner!

P.S. I posted the giveaway winner yesterday!

Tagged adventures, forest park, garden, gardening, summer

Nov 09 2015

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adventures, Forest Park, gardening, Oak Park

Plot #6: The End of the Season

On Saturday, we spent the morning clearing out our little garden plot for the season. We pulled out all of the tomato plants, the sad, underdeveloped loofah (sniff, sniff), and a few last herbs. I was at the garden a couple of weeks ago and I thought I’d harvested the end of the parsley (pictured above with Naoto), but it turns out, there was a ton left. We gave some away to our fellow community gardeners and ended up bringing home another half-pound of our own. There was one last pumpkin in the pumpkin patch. Laura had left it there longer to see if it would turn orange, but it never did. I was charmed by its coloring so I got to bring it home. It’s on the lanai now, but I’m going to bring it in for the Thanksgiving table in a couple of weeks. We added a little bit of fresh compost to our plot and then I planted a few walking onions from Laura’s plot. I’m already looking forward to that harvest in the spring!

As I mentioned way back in this post, I have been weighing my harvests all summer. I totaled up all of the records that have been sitting on the corner of my desk and I was quite surprised. We picked over 38 pounds of produce from our plot this summer! Not bad, right? And we didn’t even make the most of our plot by planting fall crops or using the space the best possible way. (One of these years, we are going to learn how to stop the tomato takeover! But I guess there are worse problems than loads of tomatoes, right?!)

So that’s the end of Plot #6 for 2015. I still have some work to do on the lanai before I can put my gardening gloves away for the season and dream of the Seed Swap coming up again next March!

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

Aug 25 2015

13 Comments

celebrations, cocktails, Jell-O, Those Were the Days, vintage

Mrs. Roper Party

A few months ago on Twitter, I admitted that I was shopping for kaftans. I’ve been on a huge Three’s Company kick all summer, finding myself more interested in Mrs. Roper’s wardrobe than the storylines. If you’ve ever watched Three’s Company you know that every episode revolves around some sort of misunderstanding. But Mrs. Roper’s kaftans just keep getting better and better! The kaftans are so over-the-top fabulous and comfortable looking that I decided I needed one of my own. While I was deciding, we started chatting (on Twitter) about kaftans and Mrs. Roper and we all decided that we should get together and wear kaftans and lounge on the lanai. The Mrs. Roper Party was born. I didn’t need to send invitations, but I had these fantastic Three’s Company theme song postcards from Zerobird Studio, so I sent them as little reminders about the party. I had so much fun looking through old cookbooks and Pinterest for late 70s/early 80s recipes. For appetizers, Katie made crab dip, served on a groovy platter and I made a cheese ball, (I cut this recipe in half and used pimentos instead of green chiles and chopped cashews instead of pecans.) served with classic Ritz crackers. And I made a Jello mold! It wasn’t beautiful (My peach slices didn’t stay put and ended up floating around instead of making a pretty ring…rookie mistake) but it was delicious. And it was my first time using my vintage Tupperware mold and worked like a charm! For dinner we ate pineapple chicken (I used this recipe, but substituted canned pineapple for fresh, because 1970s…) and store bought fried chicken. Sidecar cocktail, Mrs. Roper Party As much as I wanted to stay on theme and make a Southern Comfort punch for the party, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I made a classic cocktail, the Sidecar. (Thanks, Kathy, for the photo above!) I was going to serve Brandy Alexanders with dessert, but we finished the brandy thanks to bartender Naoto keeping our glasses constantly filled. We had chocolate fondue for dessert. My parents gave me a vintage 1970s fondue pot and this was the first time I used it. (Fondue was so easy that I’m not sure why we don’t do it more often.)The weather couldn’t have been more perfect for lanai lounging. My only regret is that we didn’t get a full-length picture of us all in our kaftans. Other than that, 1970s entertaining is easy living. Not only did I get to throw on a breezy kaftan, but I could have made most of the recipes out of my pantry. Normally I’m rushing around buying fresh produce and chopping fruits and vegetables for party recipes. This time, I opened cans and boxes–Jello, canned peached, canned pineapple, crackers…everything just got tossed together. 1970s hostessing is amazing!
Thanks to Katie, Donovan, and Kathy for being up for a kaftan party and to Naoto for taking care of all of us Saturday night.

Next up…sometime in the future…a Golden Girls party complete with cheesecakes!

Tagged celebrations, cocktails, food, homemaking, summer, vintage

Aug 03 2015

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adventures, Forest Park, Oak Park, In My Neighborhood, Postal Consumer Advisory Council, snail mail

A Day at the Market

The mobile post office made it to the Oak Park Farmers Market! Hallelujah!

We got to the market around 10:45am and there were a couple of people in line ahead of us. I was excited to buy a few sheets each of the Summer Harvest stamps and the Coastal Birds postcard stamps, but their credit card machine was “down” and they were out of the postcard stamps. Since I was saving my cash for the farmers market, I only bought one sheet of the Summer Harvest stamps. So, what could have been a $40+ sale ended up being less than $10. (Bummer…) But on a high note, Orlando was working and he’s our old favorite from our Oak Park Post Office days, so it was good to catch up with him. Clearly the USPS made a good decision to have their cheeriest employee working at the market!

There was no special postmark, but they had a table with coloring books for kids and a free bubble mailer for participating in a survey about your experience at the window. I’m interested to hear how the post office fared financially because future participation will depend on Saturday’s sales. I’ll report back when we have our next council meeting in a couple of weeks. After we got our postage stamps, we hopped in the donut line for the famous farmers market donuts, bought a load of Mirai corn, and went home. (And of course, both the donuts and the corn were out of this world!)

Tagged adventures, forest park, snail mail, summer

Jul 17 2015

4 Comments

adventures, Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening

Plot #6: Back to the Jungle

I failed again this year to make my garden neat and tidy. It’s a jungle again. I feel like the tomatoes are more disorderly than ever and the cucumbers…well, let’s just say not thinning them out early on has created a tangle of rebellious vines that will not take the hint to stay in the plot. But, growing in the jungle are teeny, tiny edamame……and the beginnings of a strong crop of green beans. The daikon are almost done, but I pulled this huge guy last week and Naoto enjoyed it on Sunday night. And I picked our first red tomato! It was a Sweet 100 and I shared it with Naoto. It was so sweet and juicy! I hope there are hundreds more in our future!

So far, we’ve harvested almost 15 ounces in radishes, peas, tomatoes, and lettuces. It’s just the beginning!

I hope to have some balcony* garden pictures next week. Some of my vining plants are finally starting to bloom and I think it’s my best summer out there yet!

How is your garden growing?

*I’ve begun calling the balcony the lanai as a nod to the Golden Girls.

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

Jun 25 2015

5 Comments

adventures, Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening

Plot #6: The Growing I’ve Missed

We came home from Japan and it was more than a week before we made it to see the garden! I know that sounds crazy, but I was deep in the fog of jet lag and any time I was awake, it seemed to be raining. When we finally made it over, we were amazed at how big our plants had grown. We even had a few things to harvest! Pictured above is the plot (looking north). You can see that I never did fill those four square feet I had left. But the good news is, I have two tomato seedlings on my balcony that have grown like gangbusters and will be transplanted this weekend. We finally thinned our daikon enough for them to grow into respectably-sized vegetables! I was only able to harvest two, but the others are growing nicely in their square. None of the beets were ready though, much to my disappointment. Our Juliet has some nice green tomatoes and the Sweet 100 has some, too! On the north end of the garden, the peas are going crazy and I have four edamame plants, a crazy square of cucumber plants (too many for one square!), and two volunteer tomatoes (to be transplanted soon). I reserved one square for a loofah plant that I started on the balcony. It’s looking good, but I’ve read that loofah aren’t good as transplants. I’m going to try it anyway and hope for the best.

One of my goals this growing season is to weigh our harvests so at the end of the season we can get an idea of how many pounds of produce we are eating from our garden. This was our first harvest: lots of komatsuna lettuce and some radishes.

It feels good to be back in the garden again!

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

Jun 24 2015

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adventures, Japan 2015, My Love Affair with Tokyo, Office Supplies, snail mail, Spending the Yen

Spending the Yen 6: Fish Stamp

I picked up this kanji fish stamp in Itoya during our trip and I’m so excited about it. I’ve seen these stamps in previous trips and I’ve always loved the artistry and meanings. I wish I’d written down the artist’s name. He has a whole collection of these stamps, with simple drawings mixed with kanji. This one in particular means (roughly translated) “a feeling that you are face to face even though you are far apart”. Isn’t that a perfect description of letter writing? Naoto, who isn’t often impressed with rubber stamps, convinced me that I needed this stamp in my collection. I’m glad I let him talk me into buying it!Yesterday was a most beautiful day and I spent some time on the balcony writing letters and using my new stamp. I stamped it on some sticker paper and cut out a bunch of stickers to send to pen pals. I’m very happy to share these sentiments with my letter writing friends!

Tagged adventures, crafts, diy, I *heart* Japan, Japan, mail art, office supplies, rubber stamp, snail mail, summer

Apr 30 2015

2 Comments

Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening

Plot #6: Gardening Begins!

Naoto and I went to the garden for the first time this season on Sunday. We were pleased to find very few weeds in our plot! The soil preparation has gotten so much easier each year. (Here is what it looked like when we inherited the plot.) Because it rained on Saturday, weeding was super-easy. (And no, Naoto did not do it alone. I jumped in after this picture was taken!) After loosening the soil (not turning it!), we laid down another layer of fresh mulch and called it a day. I was planning to plant some daikon, beets, and bok choi but the water at the garden wasn’t turned on yet, so I suppose planting will have to wait a little longer.

How is your garden growing?

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

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