New Chicago Park District Garden – Community Roots Demonstration & Community Garden

The Community Roots Demonstration & Community Garden will formally open to the public on June 11 of this year with a full day of festivities to kick off the beginning of the programming season.

Located in Skinner Park on the Near West Side of Chicago, the garden will soon become home to a wide offering of classes and workshops, as well as opportunities for more passive and informal garden learning. Because this new space is being envisioned as a place for all of Chicago’s gardeners to gather, you’ll see many familiar faces from our green-thumbed community—Chicago Botanic Garden, Illinois Extension Master Gardeners, Chicago Honey Co-op, Social Ecologies, and more. Don’t forget to bring the kids; there will be tons of fun activities for them too. —plus, there will be a LOT of kid-friendly activities. We envision this space as a home for all of Chicago’s Gardeners. Join in the festivities June 11, 10am-2pm.

Official Announcement:

Chicago Park District Gardening Programs
Community Roots Demonstration & Community Garden
communitygardens@chicagoparkdistrict.com

Chicago has become a leading city for community gardening and local food production, and the Chicago Park District gardening programs have a long history of supporting and advancing the valuable practice of organic vegetable gardening. Chicago Park District’s Community Gardens are as diverse as the city itself. Creating a space where park patrons and gardeners of all ages and skill levels can learn together and share their experiences will strengthen and support our gardeners in a lifetime of learning.

The Community Roots Demonstration Garden will provide Chicagoan’s of all ages greater access to gardening education: to learn more about growing their own food, as well as teaching about native species, pollinating plants, composting, rainwater harvesting, season extending techniques, and a variety of other topics that help inform and excite both seasoned and novice gardeners. The site will serve as a hub for CPD-sponsored garden education, as well as opening itself to garden groups and educators to host their own educational workshops and events.

Overall, the Community Roots Demonstration & Community Garden was proposed as a way of highlighting the incredible diversity of experiences that gardening has to offer. While focusing in large part on growing fresh produce, the garden will also feature fruit trees and berries, native plantings and digging beds. A variety of styles of raised beds and planters will be featured, and different areas of the garden will serve to teach visitors about topics from healing and sensory plants to companion planting, rainwater harvesting, beneficial insects, and more.

Our Goals:

To provide a living, growing home-base for all Chicago Park District sponsored gardening programs:

• Harvest Garden is a three season gardening program for kids ages 6-12, which focuses on the fundamental skills of organic vegetable gardening and includes arts & crafts, games and of course, cooking! The Community Roots garden allows Harvest Garden to expand to its 17th park location.
• Field Trips: The Community Roots garden will provide the Chicago Park District with the ability to host field trips throughout summer camp and into the school year, providing garden education to kids in parks and schools without an existing gardening program. Activities will focus on core areas of learning including plant identification, the importance of pollinators, ecology and environmental sustainability.
• The Community Gardens in the Parks program provides guidance, support and resources for nearly 70 different community garden groups citywide. The demonstration garden will offer a truly interactive space to host workshops and classes to advance their skills, as well as being available for community garden group meetings, celebrations, classes and other events as needed by our garden groups.
• Garden to Go: Family cooking demonstrations using freshly harvested produce helps families make the connection between what’s growing in the garden and how to get it to the dinner table without a lot of fuss. Focusing on simple techniques and a variety of herbs and spices to bring ingredients together, this program has helped tie together gardening and home life, and encourages families to learn and grow together. This program is featured throughout late summer and fall, when the garden is at its most productive.

Add much-needed community gardening space to the near west side of Chicago:

The Community Gardens in the Parks program gets many inquiries each year from the Near West Side and West Loop community, from people who are looking for community garden plots where they can grow their own produce. There are only a small handful of community gardens in the surrounding communities, and none that are open to the community on park property. Nine of the raised beds built on the site will be dedicated community gardening space. In exchange for plots, members of the community garden will be asked to assist in the maintenance of the demonstration/education beds.

Design Features:

The design of this site is meant to encourage exploration, learning and creativity. Garden beds have been built around winding pathways, with different areas of discovery around each turn. The site has been constructed to allow for incremental expansion and adjustments over time, as the needs of the community and the priorities of the Chicago Park District’s gardening programs shift. Below is a description of the key features that are expected in the first year of operation:

2015

The Outdoor Classroom: Serving as the hub and in the center of the garden site, a storage shed and classroom structure provide a meeting and community space and serve as the classroom site for workshops & demonstrations.

Raised beds: Raised garden beds surround the classroom, a large portion being dedicated to education and the rest assigned to community members. The layout of the beds encourage winding paths and exploration, and feature a variety of styles and heights to encourage a diverse population of visitors.

2016

Fruit trees: Urban orchards are gaining in popularity and have become a subject in which many of our gardeners are interested. Around the perimeter of Skinner Park, roughly 12 fruit trees will be planted in the spring of 2016 to broaden our educational reach and add interest to the garden site.

Rainwater harvesting: Environmental sustainability is a priority held high by many gardeners, as well as by the gardening program staff at CPD. By adding rain barrels to the shelter, we will demonstrate ways to harvest rainwater as a part of the learning process.

Plant life: As mentioned, plant life in the garden will focus largely on edible produce, and will use the remaining garden space to feature a wide variety of other valuable lessons – from native plants and grasses, pollinating plants, butterfly gardens and cut flowers, empty beds for digging and exploration, sensory and healing plants, rain gardens, fruit trees and shrubs, etc.

Interested in volunteering or learning more about the garden? Please contact communitygardens@chicagoparkdistrict.com.