There aren`t too many things that can be grown and consumed that Urban Oen and his family don`t know about.
A 2,500-square-foot vegetable and herb garden and a 2,000-square-foot fruit tree grove, both of which grace Oen`s half-acre lot in unincorporated Wayne Township, are a testimony to that fact.
With that kind of output, it`s easy to see how the 49-year-old son of an Ohio hog farmer can claim the title of Du Page County`s Grand grand champion gardener.
”Well, it helps,” Oen said in a Jimmy Stewart drawl fresh out of a Frank Capra film, ”if you aren`t afraid to get your fingernails dirty.”
It also helps to do your homework about the plants you are trying to grow, said Oen, who holds bachelor`s and master`s degrees in agriculture.
Oen, his wife, Sylvia, and their five children have tended to their crops on a grand scale since 1974, but they are no longer alone in the world of home-grown produce.
All over the western suburbs, vegetable gardens are popping up in the back yards of the most unsuspecting subdivisions. The number of metropolitan farmers, wearing suit and tie by day and overalls by night and weekend, is on the rise.
”With produce being so expensive these days and in short supply, a lot more people are going to home gardening,” said LaVerne Laycock, president of Garden Clubs of Illinois, a statewide affiliation of gardening organizations. There are 55 garden clubs in Du Page County, touting membership of about 1,200, Laycock of Glen Ellyn said. Another 25 clubs affiliated with her organization meet in western Cook County and parts of Will and Kane Counties. ”Some clubs are starting night chapters to attract couples and people who work during the day,” she said.
One place many would-be gardeners are flocking to is the Idea Garden at Cantigny Park on Winfield Road southwest of Wheaton. A new feature at the park, the 10-acre garden showcases several examples of how to develop a vegetable garden in a suburban environment, according to Joe Sable, Cantigny`s chief grower.
”It`s kind of an imaginary giant back yard,” Sable said. ”We`ve tried to think of as many things as possible to include.”
One of those features is square foot gardening, in which the vegetables are planted in square-foot segments rather than in a rows as in a traditional garden. The result is a checkerboard-like vegetable patch that allows the gardener to get the maximum yield from a minimum amount of property.
”It`s a different way of managing your plot,” said Cantigny`s greenhouse curator Jenny Lund. ”The idea is you don`t waste any space by doing it in square-foot sections like you would doing it in rows.”
A variation on square foot gardening illustrates how to grow two different plants with different maturation rates at the same time in the same area, Lund said.
For example, since radish grows below ground and lettuce above it, they can be planted in the same area, she said. And since radish matures faster, it can be harvested while the lettuce is beginning to bloom. Then, while the lettuce is maturing, the gardener can start over again with more radishes, or carrots, or some other below ground vegetable, Lund said.
Cantigny also displays various potting sheds and styles of trellis and terrace gardens.
”On a really nice Sunday, we`ll have 1,000 people out here,” Sable said. ”You see people taking notes. You see them taking pictures.”
On weekends, volunteers from the University of Illinois` Cooperative Extension Service in Du Page County are present at the park to answer questions from the public.
”We`re trying to get people interested in gardening and keep them interested,” said Jim Schuster, the co-op`s senior horticulture adviser.
To that end, the co-op service manages the master gardener program, in which about 50 people at a time receive 60 hours of training in vegetable gardening in exchange for 60 hours of volunteer time to answer questions, appear at club meetings and teach future master gardeners.
The Cantigny volunteers are all graduates of the master gardener program, Schuster and Sable said.
”Our demand for volunteers is always greater than our supply,” Schuster said. ”We usually lose about half every year. But then there are some that have been with us for 10 years.”
As one of those longtime master gardeners and with about 40 years experience in agriculture, Oen recently published a paper and devised a 12-month calendar, complete with a month-by-month checklist of recommended activities, offering tips on how to grow a successful garden in the Midwest.
The end result of all that knowledge is a bountiful harvest.
”What we don`t eat we give away,” Sylvia Oen said on a recent tour of his backyard plot. The selection of harvested crops, which generally adds up to between $500 and $1,000 worth of goods each year, according to the Oens, reads like a shopping list at a grocery store produce department.
Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, potato, lettuce, beets, carrots, onions, scallions, corn, tomato, asparagus, radish, pea, cucumber, all manner of bean, mellon, zucchini, pumpkin, strawberry, rasberry, apple, peach, plum, dill, spearmint and peppermint, just to name a few.
”We`re still eating sweet corn from last year,” Oen added. ”See here, 15 pounds of potato seeds will reap 350 pounds of potatoes.”
The Oen family-Barb, 16; Kristi, 14; Christopher, 12; Kathryn, 10; and John, 7-often eat while they harvest, the parents said.
”Urb loves cooked peas, but we rarely have enough,” Sylvia said.
”Yeah,” Urban added, again in a perfect Jimmy Stewart, ”the kids sure like to forage.”
The thing the Oens point to most with pride is the care for the environment with which their garden is grown. No chemical fertilizers or insecticides in this plan.
”If you grow a healthy garden, it will tolerate the insects,” Oen said. The family at one time raised praying mantises, which they released into the garden to keep harmful bugs under check.
And long before composting was vogue or mandated by law, the Oens were piling all organic waste by the backyard shed to turn into mulch that they used to enhance the garden`s soil.
”We used to go around the neighborhood and ask people if we could take their leaves that were piled on the curb,” Sylvia Oen said. ”This year with all the new laws (against dumping yard waste at landfills) people will probably ask us to take their leaves.”
Using compost to break up the soil is an absolute must in order to start a garden, said Charles and Betty Hill, a master gardener couple who farm their yard in Hinsdale and a few other spots around southeast Du Page County.
”In most of these subdivisions, the builders have scraped off the topsoil so that the dirt that`s left is like cement,” said Charles, 65. ”You need to build that soil up.”
Another useful bit of advice the Hills commonly pass along to beginners is to start small and simple. A 10-foot-by-10-foot plot filled with easy-to-grow vegetables like tomatoes and carrots is best, they said.
”Don`t go for that fancy stuff right away,” Betty Hill said.
”So many people dig up their entire yard, plant everything under the sun, water it once and then expect to kick back and reap a big harvest,”
Charles said. ”Then when it doesn`t happen, they get discouraged and give up gardening.”
The Hills are such vegetable gardening enthusiasts that they have rented vacant lots elsewhere in Hinsdale and at Mar-Duke Farm, a Downers Grove Park District facility at 67th and Main Streets.
”We`ve met some awfully nice people through gardening,” Betty Hill said. ”And there`s no better time you can spend with a family than in a garden.”
”Gardening is a labor of love,” her husband added. ”You can`t do it for a profit.”
One of the more intangible benefits is the piece of mind and relaxation that gardening can bring, the Hills said.
”It`s a natural thing,” Betty said. ”You don`t have to go to a health club.”
”The one thing that saved me from getting ulcers (at his job as a U.S. Postal Service executive) was that I could come home, put on a pair of work pants and work boots and go out into the garden to pull weeds,” Charles said. And in a way, future generations` survival may one day depend again on being able to grow their own food, the gardeners said.
”It`s important that kids see that adults actually do the kinds of things they`re talking about,” said Mary Moravec, a Downers Grove home gardener who works with the county`s 4-H program.
”There are so many young people today-and I find this ridiculous-who don`t know how a carrot grows,” Charles Hill said.
Urban Oen said his children know more about plants and insects than most college students.
”They`ll see a bug out there and immediately come in here to look it up” in one of Oen`s reference books that make up his large library, he said. Those books might have come in handy at the co-op service, where questions about insects topped the list of concerns shared by Du Page County`s horticulturists, according to the Hills.
”The big question people had this year was the cicadas,” Charles Hill said. ”Of course, now it`s the earwigs.”
Perhaps the best advice the Hills have for would-be gardeners is be prepared for a life-long love. Once you`re into gardening, it`s hard to stop, they said.
”We`ve always had a garden of sorts wherever we lived,” said Charles. The Hills recently sold their gardening equipment in preparation for moving permanently to Florida, where the couple will be faced with a new climate and growing environment.
”This is just a small sample of what we had been into,” Betty noted of their lush backyard. ”I know we`re going to miss it.”
