PRIVATE GARDENS

Not limited to working exclusively with hospitality clients, I selectively takes on residential projects as well, employing gardening practices and methods geared towards the needs and expectations of a home kitchen, rather than a restaurant kitchen.

In 2013, I was commissioned to design and build a residential "walk-up" kitchen garden, situated above the residence's garage and overlooking a stretch of Lake Michigan's stunning shoreline in Evanston. Each summer, the family enjoys harvesting heirloom potatoes and tomatoes, radishes, peppers, nasturtium, carrots, melons, cucumbers, greens and herbs from their garage deck garden.

In the city, I transformed an existing roof deck garden in the Little Italy neighborhood with ornamental, non-edible plants, into a fully functioning vegetable garden, replacing the depleted soil with nutrient rich organic, composted soil and installing a drip-line irrigation system. The revamped roof deck garden now yields an abundance of cherry tomatoes, Asian greens, chiles, onions, summer squash, herbs and edible flowers.