Back to School

Doug Wood is the longtime head of the Wicker Park Garden Club. Every year they put together a series of seminars on garden subjects, here's a few that might be of interest to our local readers:

Saturday, March 28 - 10 am-12 Noon - Workshop
Reservations: $15 - wpgarden@aol.com or 773-278-9075
Wicker Park Historic Home - Location Given to Registered Students

SEED & PLANT PROPAGATION WORKSHOP
Richard Tilley, Larry Clary - Wicker Park Garden Club

So you want to grow something special or plants you can’t buy at the garden center. NO PROBLEM! Richard has grown plants for his garden from seed for 15 years-1200 plants from seed this past spring. Learn about affordable light sources; soil mixtures; propagating hardy and half-hardy annuals, tender perennials, biennials; germination conditions--heat or cool, in light or in the dark, pre-chilling or soaking seeds; germination times - days to months; transplanting and hardening off.

If you don't want to start your own seedlings--or buy some of ours-- they'll have a nice selection available for sale on May 2nd and 3rd.

Saturday, Sunday May 2 & 3 - 10am-3:30 pm
Wicker Park - 1425 N. Damen, Chicago, IL
PLANT SALE & WORKSHOPS
Fundraiser for the Gardens in Wicker Park
Good Weather--Outside Field House-West Side or Bad Weather Inside

Enjoy shopping for your spring garden design s—the plant sale fundraiser features a large selection of plants that can be used for your containers, come for exciting tropicals for sun and shade, zone 5 hardy perennials for sun and/or shade gardens, and a selection of tomatoes and vegetables. Plant list composed of recommendations of our members--let us know what you would like to see at the sale. COME EARLY!

You can also find seedlings at some of the Farmers Markets, starting at the end of April. Before I grew my own, two of my favorite spots were Green City Market on Wednesdays and the Lincoln Park High School Market on Saturdays. Plenty of interesting varieties not found at the big box stores.

Another great--free!-- resource is the Garfield Park Conservatory.

Stop by the Conservatory's outside Demonstration Garden to visit with our hard-working gardeners. They might be planting, weeding or if you’re lucky, they’ll be harvesting something you can taste! Many of our garden volunteers are Master Gardeners who would be happy to answer your questions and talk with you about their work. Staffed garden is dependent on weather ─ please call 773-638-1766 ext 16 for additional information.

The University of Illinois Cook County Extension office has a terrific outreach program on Urban Horticulture and the Environment. They have plenty of practical advice, and again, it's Free............

Finally, there's Nance Klehm. She does it all and likes to share what she knows. This is from the Living Kitchen section of her site:

Localizing the Palate in the Landscape

Are you looking for a different taste? Do you like to cook with others? Are you wondering what to do with your cabbage/apples/dandelions? Are you curious about foraging for wild plants?

Living kitchen is a series of informal cooking workshops that hopes to reorganize our connection to land, ourselves and our communities through the processing and sharing of local and regional foods. In these workshops we use foods that are locally cultivated, as well as foraged in order to foster exploration of our environs and with our relationship with what’s growing around us.

Living Kitchen is about direct experience with what’s living and growing around us, new tastes, simple food-making processes, and sharing with others.

QUESTIONS? Contact Nance via email: nettlesting [at] yahoo [dot] com