My Chicago Garden

I just found a cool website/blog/tv show over at gardenfork.tv

They have episodes on building a low cost grow light and seed starting. Which is perfect timing since I’m expecting my seed shipments any day now. You should check out Eric over at gardenfork.tv!

In between tearing out my kitchen and garage I’ll be putting some of Eric’s advice to the test.

My wife and I have decided to go with a professional landscape architect at the house in Wheaton. I’ll post some pictures as soon as I can find the camera memory card reader, but for now…just trust me that it needs a whole yard makeover.  From what I heard from the neighbors the previous owners didn’t have much time for gardening or the house. They were busy busy busy with other more important things like family (and rightfully so).

We meet with a local landscape architect (Kevin Wobrock) a couple days after moving in and we were very much impressed.  He was willing to listen to my grand ideas and modify them to be more appropriate.  For example…I had thought about putting in a pond near the front door. In fact, had I not talked to Kevin I would have.  But he immediately pointed out that my chosen location was in a low area of the yard and water runoff into that corner near the house had him concerned.  I hadn’t even noticed the problem.  I guess that’s why he is a professional.  You can see some of his work at his company website Wobrock Landscaping.  He has agreed to allow me to discuss his work, and my opinion of it, on the podcast (it’s always nice to ask first).  So stay tuned to find out what it’s like to work with a professional.  Oh yeah…the price was very reasonable.  He quoted under $1000 for an entire yard design (front, back, both sides) including hard scape items such as decks and patios.  And the design comes with detailed planting information about every plant on the design.  I know that sounds like a lot of money, but when you compare it to $10,000 for a new roof, $30,000+ for a new kitchen and any of a number of other "repairs" to a house…it’s VERY reasonable.

We close on our new house next monday (12th) and will be moving in and getting the house worked on and all sorts of small odds and ends so I’ve decided to put the podcast on hiatus for a month.  During that time I’m going to evaluate if I want to continue the podcast or not.  It takes about 4 or 5 hours a week to put the podcast together and I find that I’m hard pressed to find that kind of availability.  I may just switch to a blog or maybe change the format of the podcast. We’ll see.  If you have an opinion one way or the other please comment.

The house in Northern Kentucky hasn’t sold yet but we are moving forward with the purchase of the new house in Wheaton, IL.

We would have liked to have sold the old house before buying a new house but we simply can’t live 600 miles apart from each other anymore.  It has been since December 1st that I’ve been in Chicago and the rest of the family has been in Columbus, OH.  It’s time to be a family again.

The new house in Wheaton needs a lot of repairs.  New kitchen, two new bathrooms, new roof, new interior for the garage, new laundry area, and the landscaping is non-existent.  Lots of things to do…not much time or money to do them with.

Ahh..the joys of home ownership

-Tyler