Connecting Chicago Community Gardeners Meetup

Front of CCGT building

Last Saturday I attended the Connecting Chicago Community Gardeners event at the Chicago Center for Green Technology. An awesome community resource by the way; they have events, tours, and a resource center for visitors. 

The CCCG event started with registration. Registered guests signed in the front area and received a folder with a packet of seeds, pamphlets, and an informational 'how-to' packet on starting a community garden (courtesy of Openlands). I got seeds for snow peas, green bell peppers, and cosmos flowers! :)

Panel Discussion

The first part of the program began with a panel discussion of 5 local gardening experts moderated by radio host Mike Nowak (more pics on the CCCG fb page). Some quick facts that I learned from the panel:

1) Soil tests: This is a must in the city. Lead from lead paint is a major contaminant and is extremely toxic. 

2) Lead tests for soil: Is expensive. A raised bed might be more economically feasible and less risky for exposure. 

3) Use mesh metal can keep the rodent problem at bay. Rats can be a problem in the garden and your compost bin. 

4) Gardening can help reduce violence!! Children get a sense of ownership and learn how to nurture something from a seedling to a plant. 

5) Selling food requires registration. For a community garden to sell food for profit it must follow the Urban Ag ordinance and register to be an urban farm. 

This was followed by a complimentary lunch for registered guests. Then an array of helpful workshops -- 4 to be exact. They all sounded interesting; the topics ranged from water conservation techniques, raising money to getting a community organized for a community garden. I decided on the 'Negotiating Space: The First Step in Growing a Garden'.  

Here is some info about negotiating space for a community garden in the City of CHICAGO, sorry need to emphasize this because the rules here won't apply anywhere else. 

Check list for a CPD garden

1) Gardening in a Chicago Public Park - THE LENGTHIEST PROCESS!

The Chicago Park District has very specific rules and has a 7 step process that you MUST adhere to. But if you are committed and interested, you can view the checklist to the right. If this checklist scares you like it did me, then click on this link to view EXISTING CPD community gardens. 

2) Gardening in a Vacant lots - Michael Hzric spoke about his involvement with developing the Maxwell St. Community Garden on Chicago Housing Association (CHA) land. 

*Side note here: CHA is not a part of the city of Chicago, thus the land they own is not owned by the city. 

Mr Hzric outlined a few points:

1) Mobilize your residents - figure out who is in charge

2) Get support from your community - explain the benefits and get them on board!

3) Get support from the Developers 

4) Contact the CHA Asset Management 

5) Get approval from the local officials: Alderman and District Commander Review

6) Design a layout of your garden 

7) Figure out the insurance and liability issues. 

Again, like the CPD, this is another lengthy process and can only be successful with community support. 

3) Gardening on Private Property - This is probably the easiest way to start a garden because most of the time you will only need to speak with the property owner and get consent. You might want to research getting liability insurance and maybe a written contract to help make sure you layout the boundaries. Note: Since it is on private property, you are at the mercy of the land owner. 

With that I'll leave you some links that I jotted down during the course of the event - Most of these pertain to the City of Chicago:

Green Corps  

Slumbusters Garden

Peterson Garden

CPD Kilbourn Garden program

Free Seeds - America the Beautiful

Hort Corner

Nutrition Program: Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children

NeighborSpace

Food Pantry: Ample Harvest and Chicago Food Bank

Gardening for Kids

Chicago Composting Website

Our Generous Garden - A gardening book from a child's perspective

Good Ag Practices: An event on April 21

Mulch supplier: Lake Street 

Chicago Permaculture - eco-design

Chicago Park District Advisory Council

Community Gardens Galore!

I love, love the concept of community gardens! You're outside, mingling with your fellow neighbors, working under the sun with sweat on your back. Its such a satisfying feeling of growing a wee little seedling into a delectable dinner salad. And it brings us back to our farming roots and to see how it was done back in the good ole’ days. 

Picture taken from here

As I was brainstorming today (ok, dreaming) about opening up my own community garden and I saw that there are over 600 Chicago area community gardens! I tell my husband this; he wonders aloud why he has never seen one. I think to myself that I haven’t either. And then after some research I learned why many of the Chicago area community gardens are outside of a large pocket in Chicago. Vacant land in this pocket is not cheap; most of it is being sold to future homeowners who want to build their own home. The land may be expensive, but a community garden there could be the most beneficial and reap the largest rewards. 

Are there any Chicago landowners in the Lincoln Park area willing to donate some land space for a community garden? Bueller? 

I’m so excited about community gardens that I rattled off a few things that are great about them:

1) They provide a sense of ownership and responsibility for the people that take care of them.

2) It is a wealth of knowledge. From agriculture/horticulture to biology and ecology! You can even throw in a little vermicomposting bin that will make the kiddies squeal with delight (or disgust).

3) Food! How could we forget this? When I was a grad student at UC Davis, I encountered community gardens everywhere. There were outreach programs where gardens could be planted in lower income areas lacking a regular supply of fresh fruits and vegetables and gardens planted at schools. I saw communal gardens in people’s backyards, even chickens!

4) Its organic! Or at least for the most part depending on how you treat your plants – but that’s just it! It is how YOU treat your plants and you know what you did to them. Keep in mind, there has been recent scrutiny about ‘organic’ produce testing positive for chemicals and pesticides. 

5) They make a great use of space. Voila! Vacant lot into an urban oasis! That’s not an eyesore, but an eyecatcher!

6) It makes you, and possibly even your kids, eat more veggies,. Eating raw veggies help ward of obesity, illnesses, and provides a ton of essential vitamins and minerals that you know your bag of veggie chips won’t give you. Even though they are baked.

These look so appetizing! Picture taken from here

To be honest, I have never been successful with planting anything that sprouted into something that I ate. Nor has any plant of mine ever survived more than a few months without withering away and dying in my hands. I’m pretty positive that if this was the 1850’s and I was living off my land, I would die from hunger. That is why this Saturday I will be joining other Chicago-based gardening enthusiast in a community gardening meeting and hopefully be able to connect with a garden in need of a gardening newbie like me. They have a wonderful Facebook page here.

Some gardening challenges that will be discussed at this meeting are:
1) Water conservation: How will we conserve water in an era of drought and increased water bills?

2) Where can we get mulch, compost and tools?

3) How can we attract young gardeners and keep new gardeners engaged?

4) How can we train the leaders of tomorrow?

5) Can we coordinate neighborhood garden tours so we can all see each other's gardens? 
6) Most importantly, how can we ensure a bounteous future for community gardening in Chicago?

Would love to hear any suggestions so I can contribute!

#StrikeWithMe - Matt Damon's Strike!!

I just saw this article on TreeHuggers about Matt Damon's boycott on using the bathroom...



Matt Damon, an advocate for fresh water and clean sanitation for all, is the co-founder for Water.org. If you're wondering why anyone would boycott using a toilet, check out my blog post Composting Toilets? for a little background information on Western toilets.

You can support his strike by signing up here! Go Matt Damon!

Desertification

When I think of desertification I imagine the dusty sand dunes in the Sahara or Gobi desert where sustaining human life is daily struggle. And I'm not that far off...

Picture reused from this link

Did you know that Egypt used to have fertile land caused by the annual flooding of the Nile around the time of the ancient Egyptians? But in recent years, Egypt's food production is affected by desertification.

Desertification is a serious degradation of land resulting from a damaged ecosystem that can no longer sustain human development. Land that is in arid areas are most vulnerable. Associated as a man-made problem, desertification has been interlinked to poverty and hunger, and can can cause social, ethnic, and political strife.

Excessive grazing of livestock, poor farming techniques, and deforestation deplete the land's natural vegetation covering causing the soil to erode, become too salty (salinity), and to lose its fertility. To exacerbate the issue even more is climactic changes such as erratic rainfall and long droughts. Excessive and intense wild fires burn natural vegetation and degrade the land. In addition, there is a loss of biodiversity as well as the loss of capacity to sequester carbon emissions.

It hits the inhabitants the hardest in developing nations where many depend on the land for basic survival. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization desertification affects more than 1.2 billion people in over 100 countries. Desertification also threatens over 4 billion hectares of land - roughly a third of the Earth's land surface!!

The increased demand in food caused by an expanding population makes this an even more pressing problem - there are more mouths to feed using less arable land, putting stress on the land and increasing poverty and hunger. Before you brush desertification as a problem associated with developing countries, don't forget about the Dust Bowl in America. It's considered the worst man-made ecological disaster occurring in the 1930's. [On a side note - PBS is broadcasting a special encore of the film The Dust Bowl by Ken Burns airing on April 23 and 30, 2013 - click HERE for more info and to watch their trailer!!]

Credits: Arthur Rothstein; The Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division

Prevention has been shown to be the best method of handling desertification for land that is still salvageable. On the other hand, Restoration is the key for land that has already been damaged. Restoration is not as easy as planting a bunch of trees, according to Menz, Dixon, and Hobbs, it involves assisting the recovery of a damaged or destroyed ecosystem. The cost of restoration multiplies when you include the cost of purchasing seeds, water and irrigation systems for large areas of land.

The three researchers from Australia outline the to-do's and not to-do's for large scale eco-restoration in the latest Science article. They propose a four point plan that identifies troubled regions and to showcase the social and economic benefits of a restored ecosystem for political incentive. They call for more research, as well as collecting and disseminating knowledge. Without more research, restoration can threaten ecosystems when they are improperly planned for. The authors mention China's Great Green Wall a Chinese afforestation program where native ecosystems have been compromised by planting non-native tree species in areas that naturally have no forest.

Anyway - here is an awesome video that is very informational about desertification by GoodPlanet


Much of the information about desertification was taken from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Board, their assessment can be found here.