Midsummer is here and we are dividing our days between hyper-manicured floral photo shoots and the wild imperfection of our flower farm. Sunstroke can be mildly exciting but today I had my first, “let’s-find-the-car-keys-in-the-field-day”. Thank goodness that game only lasted 15 minutes! We’ve begun battling pests organically and I applied my first super batch of …
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Some clearly brilliant women from Green City Market’s junior board are hosting a series of farm dinners in honor of urban farmers this summer in Chicago’s most incredible parks. Our friends from The Chicago Honey Co-op were on the list of course and by donating flowers from our farm we were lucky enough to tuck …
Dahlias have started at the farm! I feel as if I must be some kind of wizard, like I need to shop for a trailing navy blue robe with golden crescents and stars on it, and don a pointed hat to match. DAHLIAS!!! I can’t even spell the word!! They are my all time favorite …
Our plants were all knee high by the fourth of July! Some of them were so tall that they were snapping off at the base and a mad staking party in a flooded field was held. We started out with mallets up on ladders, then post drivers and finally figured out that the ground …
We had our first harvest this week! We cut all white cosmos including this one above that thinks it’s a dress designed by Issey Miyake. We’ve had stellar luck with regular rain, which has been key because it turns out you are supposed to put landscape fabric down after the irrigation tubing. More on that later….
We had the happy luxury of jamming tea tins full of blooms in fluorescent shades on Friday. Exotics like long stemmed Rothschild lilies, Icelandic poppies and parrot tulips mixed well with old-timey bee-balm, begonias and geranium on the Shanghai Terrace at the Pennisula where our spectacular bride greeted guests for cocktails on the eve of …
We met Carolyn Ioder’s Goat‘s, from which she provides fresh milk and artisanal cheese. We helped walk them from her yard in Austin, here on the West Side of Chicago, through the alley to the Root Riot pasture. The pasture is a few open and connected lots a block away. In the mix were two-week old …
We are living the dream of starting our own flower farm this year. We’ve been growing flowers for ourselves at the Chicago Honey Co-op for a while but this is a whole new scale. Successful farming necessitates super-human amounts of savvy, physical endurance and years of dedication, but our primary aim is just to make …
It’s suddenly Spring. I, like many Chicagoans, am stumbling around pasty and shell-shocked, blinded by this gigantic alien orb in the sky. This handful of garden greens heralds as a kind of victory flag over this intensive winter. I’ve heard of massive defections from Chicago due to last winter and I’m fine with it. Fare …
We were recently asked to create decor for a donut themed breakfast, and these “clean, elegant” donut vases emerged! After having 300 donuts arrive at the studio in waves over the past few weeks, I learned that donuts are not an everyday food. Finally, I had to tell Kristin to tell me that they were “all” …