Community Gardens in Chicago

Community gardens are a great way to bring your community together and use the opportunity to go green. Gardening in a community garden helps keep the area greener which promotes healthy air as well as better health and fitness for the citizens who live in the community garden area. A community garden has the ability to bring neighbors together in which they are able to communicate together better, while they design, plant and care for the garden. Chicago is one city that has made great effort to help promote the idea and completion of many community gardens as well as neighborhood gardens through the Chicago area with gardens such as:

Harvest Garden: The Harvest Garden is one of the community gardens programs in the Chicago area. Their programs spring session is 5weeks and encompasses garden planning prep, planting and harvesting. The summer sessions run 8 weeks long and let the children learn garden maintenance as well as what to do with the various herbs they harvest. The summer session runs at the same time as Camp Chicago and ends with a Harvest Festival. The gardens fall session runs for 5 weeks and the children learn to harvest what is left in the garden as well as how to get their garden ready for the next year. The typical schedule for sessions is: Spring: May-June, Summer: June-Aug, Fall: Sept-Oct. These gardens give the children an early experience in how to go green with their own neighborhood gardens.

Wicker Park: The Wicker Park Community gardens have over 7000 square feet of garden space that is used for xeriscape gardening, rose gardening, shade gardening as well as carpet beds and grass areas. The garden is tended every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. March through November and utilizes volunteer help. The cost of most of these seminars, workshops, lectures run from $8.00 per person to $15.00 per person. The garden club gives many seminars as well as workshops that focus on how to go green as well as how to utilize your neighborhood gardens to their fullest potential.

Green Youth Farm: This is one of many neighborhood gardens that utilize nature to show adults and children how to go green in their communities. This garden uses high school students to work their gardens from May to October. This allows the student to learn what old fashioned hard work is involved in community gardens and at the same time earn a summer paycheck.