Spring Home and Garden 2013

OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM | RBLANDMARK.COM April 24, 2013 1
SPRING HOME
& GARDEN
It’s that time of year
when you want to role up your sleeves
and get your hands in the earth.
And the beet
goes on
I N S I D E S P R I N G H O M E & G A R D E N 2 0 1 3
Up on the roof
Garden top garage
Page 4
Yes, worms
Composting
delights
Page 5
Mind garden
Clearing your
head
Page 9
2 April 24, 2013 OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM | RBLANDMARK.COM
OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM | RBLANDMARK.COM April 24, 2013 3
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 staff
Section Editor Dan Haley
Shopping Editor Sarah Corbin
Online Technology Editor Graham Johnston
Digital Editor Rosie Powers
Photo Editor David Pierini
Editorial Design Manager Claire Innes
Section Art Director Claire Innes
Editorial Designers Sky Hatter, Mark Tatara
AdDesign Manager Andrew Mead
Ad Production Manager Philip Soell
Advertising Designers Philip Soell,
Debbie Becker, Maggie Acker
Advertising Manager Marc Stopeck
Advertising Sales Missy Laurell, Dawn Ferencak
Advertising Coordinator Alicia Plomin
Classified Advertising Sales Maurenn O’Boyle
Circulation Manager Kathy Hansen
Distribution Coordinator Alan Majeski
Circulation Associate Mike Braam
■
Publisher Dan Haley
VP/Director of Operations Andrew Johnston
■
Wednesday Journal, Inc., 141 S. Oak Park Ave.
Oak Park, IL 60302 // 708-524-8300
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S P R I N G H O M E & G A R D E N 2 0 1 3
By DEB QUANTOCK McCAREY
Contributor
I
n their retirement years, Oak Parker Phyllis Bowen says
that she and her spouse Samuel haven’t 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, it’s the avid gardener’s dream come true.
“I have always loved gardening, but I had so much
shade in my yard that I couldn’t 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, he’s a physicist, so he did the recalculation
for 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 the
roof 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 “I’m in nutrition, you know, so cooking
is really a big thing for me. So now it is so easy to race up
the stairs and get all the herbs and fresh produce…and
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 veggies
up top
DAVID PIERINI/Sta Photographer
Sam and Phyllis Bowen on their roof-top garden in Oak
Park.
Too much shade? Put your garden on the roof
OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM | RBLANDMARK.COM April 24, 2013 5
S P R I N G H O M E & G A R D E N 2 0 1 3
By DEB QUANTOCK McCAREY
Contributor
E
specially for urban gardeners like
me who live in small spaces, worm
composting (also called vermicom-
posting) is a productive, fun and
doable way to divert biodegradable
kitchen scraps away from a landfill
and back into the soil in my gar-
den…or 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 meal…about
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 won’t become over-saturated or
emaciated because they are on my watch.
About every three months I harvest the
worm compost, which is called “gardener’s
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 I’ll harvest next time.
You’ve read the story, now watch the
video of “The Big Worm Migration” on my
Deb’s Big Backyard blog. You can watch
our video at http://www.lymanstreetpro-
ductions.com/apps/blog.
And then they feed my plants
Find out more
I 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 Jim’s
Worm Farm at http://unclejimswormfarm.
com
Yes, worms do eat my garbage
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6 April 24, 2013 OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM | RBLANDMARK.COM
S P R I N G H O M E & G A R D E N 2 0 1 3
By DEB QUANTOCK McCAREY
Contributor
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
grandfather’s farm, and planted those in
the northwest corner of my back yard.
Otherwise, since my kids don’t 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 sister’s 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 big
tree in Schaafsma’s backyard. That storm
transformed her growing space from shade
to full-sun.
An orchard grows in a tiny Oak Park yard
Berry nice
Courtesy of TARA SCHAAFSMA
A second-oor view of Tara Schaafsma’s garden last Spring.
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S P R I N G H O M E & G A R D E N 2 0 1 3
DAVID PIERINI/Sta Photographer
Tara Schaafsma in her backyard garden on Lyman Avenue.
Now, in that tree’s 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 wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Meanwhile, growing up her deck is a high cranberry
bush she got from her great aunt.
“It’s 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 get
more wild birds, maybe some grosbeaks for us to look
at. That would be nice.”
“I am hoping to get more wild birds, maybe
some grosbeaks for us to look at.
That would be nice.”
TARA SCHAAFSMAN
OP gardener
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8 April 24, 2013 OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM | RBLANDMARK.COM
S P R I N G H O M E & G A R D E N 2 0 1 3
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By DEB QUANTOCK McCAREY
Contributor
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 Avenue
is 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 Friday
and 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 city’s 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 only
the 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 Chicago,
and recently, the Palette and Chisel Acad-
emy of Chicago.
However, not every alley is worthy of
note. It’s 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 Park’s back doors
Oak Park — alley side up
OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM | RBLANDMARK.COM April 24, 2013 9
S P R I N G H O M E & G A R D E N 2 0 1 3
By DEB QUANTOCK McCAREY
Contributor
A
s 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 David’s standard 25-foot x
150-foot northeast Oak Park lot.
And now, in spring, it’s time to get back
into that soil.
From the street to the alley, Lentz’s 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 that
produce 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 doesn’t 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 don’t 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 don’t have
enough space to do that, so the plants I
have, must earn 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 don’t 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 Sale
220 N. Euclid Ave.
A veteran gardener
shares her gardening
A garden that’s good for
‘the inside of your head’

“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.”
SANDY LENTZ
DAVID PIERINI/Sta Photographer
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S P R I N G H O M E & G A R D E N 2 0 1 3
By DEB QUANTOCK McCAREY
Contributor
F
ifteen months after Cheryl Muñoz,
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, Muñoz 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, Muñoz 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-
ñoz 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.
DAVID PIERINI/Sta Photographer
Cheryl Munoz, co-founder of the Sugar Beet Co-Op, and Jill Niewoehner, chair of the
edible garden tour.
Sugar Beet Cooperative grows range of ventures
The Sugar Beet Cooperative’s 2nd Annual
Edible Garden Tour is set for July 27, and this
year it will feature 10 local gardens, plus a
family-friendly 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, transform
this 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 00 1 3
Making urban agriculture real in Oak Park
Mango
wood bird-
house, $39.
For the Birds,
Brookeld.
Keep squirrels
and birds away
from your harvest.
Bobble head
Owl. Schauer’s
Hardware, Forest
Park.
▼ Moss Shoe
Planter, $15. Green
Home Experts,
Oak Park.
▼ I garden, therefore
I am mug, $12. Bee
Home and Garden,
Oak Park.
▲
For an en-
lightened garden -
Buddha, $60. Bee
Home and Garden,
Oak Park.
Grow your own
decorative gourds,
$1.29 each. Schauer’s
Hardware, Forest Park
Create a gorgeous
hanging garden with
these colorful Wooly
Pockets, $15.
Route 66 Aquaponics,
Brookeld.
▲ Create a gorgeous hanging garden
with these colorful Wooly Pockets, $15.
Route 66 Aquaponics, Brookeld.
— Compiled by Sarah Corbin at [email protected]
OAKPARK.COM | RIVERFOREST.COM | RBLANDMARK.COM April 24, 2013 11
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