Heather Corallo & Dave Hoover
We have been gardening our whole lives, but somewhere along the way the garden at 2736 Hartzell took on a life of its own. What started as a few raised beds — a quiet nod to the wartime victory gardens where feeding yourself and your neighbors was understood as a community act — grew into four cedar beds, a native plant landscape, and eventually a spot on the Evanston Garden Walk. Our kids, ages 10 to 27, have grown up eating straight from the garden and occasionally helping in it.
The house itself is part of the story. Built in 1911 in the Prairie style with Arts and Crafts details, it has been home to only four families in its entire history. We are the fourth. The swamp white oak in the front yard was already 135 years old when the house went up, which means it has been standing on this corner since before the Revolutionary War. The garden feels like the right thing to be doing around a tree like that.
Welcome to Kona Farms.
Our story
It is hard to say what Heather loves more, growing food or giving it away. As you enter the backyard from the side gate on Ewing, the raised beds are the first thing you see. The area used to be a large deck that was too sunny for sitting. When the kitchen got remodeled, the deck got downsized, and Heather's nephew built the beds in its place. They now hold everything from squashes that spill into the grass by August to a rotating mix of greens, lettuces, peas, beans, herbs, and peppers.
In late winter, we start seeds indoors under grow lights. Cool-season greens are in the soil by April. A sidewalk produce table goes up in late summer, and whatever the table cannot hold goes to the community fridge at Soul and Smoke.
"I love to run around the neighborhood with a bin of produce in my arms, knocking on doors to give away fresh goodies from my garden!"
There are no pesticides in this garden. We plant decoy pots of fennel and parsley near the beds to pull cabbage looper moths away from what we actually want to harvest. Marigolds and nasturtiums ring the outside edges. Every spring, despite the height of the beds, we find a rabbit nest in one of them. Once it is moved, the rabbits redirect themselves to the rudbeckias.
The backyard borders were designed by Nature's Perspective. A serviceberry anchors the northwest corner, with panicle hydrangeas along the north fence and a privacy planting at the southwest corner. A porcelain-tiled path leads back to a shaded patio alongside the garage.
The front yard is anchored by the 250-year-old swamp white oak, which has a graceful asymmetric sweep you notice from halfway down the block. When Heather and David moved in, the front was buried in yews so overgrown they covered the windows. Those came out. In went paper bark birches, dwarf eastern white pines, and spirea, with groupings of Amsonia on both sides of the walkway. Stand back far enough and the whole planting starts to make sense around the shape of that tree.
A few things we keep coming back to
Native plants first
Native plants evolved alongside the insects and birds that depend on them. They need less water, fewer inputs, and support a lot more life than most ornamentals do. We choose them whenever we can, and we keep learning which ones thrive in our specific corner of Evanston.
No sprays, no shortcuts
Decoy pots, companion planting, compost, and a willingness to lose a plant or two to the rabbits. We work with what is happening in the garden rather than against it. Pest control through planning, not chemicals.
Keep the gate open
The sidewalk table, the community fridge, this website. If something is growing well here, we would rather share it than sit on it. Neighbors who stop and ask questions are always welcome to stay and look around.
Come by and look around
We are part of the Evanston Garden Walk. The gate is usually open, and so are we.
Request a Food Garden Consult
Tell Heather a little about your space and what you'd like to grow, and she'll be in touch.