The plot grows 

Spring has finally arrived and visions of bountiful summer vegetable harvests and endless zucchini recipes are dancing in the heads of local gardeners. For people who don’t have access to backyard space and want to get their hands in the dirt, community gardens are a vibrant hub of vegetable production, gardening know-how, seed-swapping and camaraderie. 

Local gardens include the Forest Park Community Garden, Riverside Community Garden, and the Austin Garden Collective supporting over 25 gardens. They all have opportunities.

The Forest Park Community Garden is heading into its 17th season with over 60 garden club members committed to their mission of providing access to knowledge and space for people to grow their own healthy, organic produce. FPGC sits on Illinois Department of Transportation Land just west of Harlem Avenue, just before the entrance to I-290. It features 54 individual garden plots and, for the first time this year, a beehive. 

The garden today is the result of hard work by a devoted board. After COVID, the original founders moved away and the garden fell into disrepair. When current Board President Rachel Hanel found out about it, she gathered community members together to keep the garden growing. This group is now in its third year of running the garden. They have every intention of beating last year’s production of 260 pounds of produce donated over the season to Beyond Hunger. 

“We feel really proud of how far we’ve gotten,” Hanel said. “All the plots are rented. We hold workshops and events and parties and it’s really awesome to see how people help each other out in the community.”  

The group has also worked on the natural landscape surrounding the garden, seeding the hillside with native plants and flowers to “keep the ecosystem diverse in the way that native animals and bugs need them to be,” Hanel said. There are prairie patches and a pollinator flower hill in the middle of the garden, which benefits pollinators and vegetable gardeners alike.

FPGC’s season kicked off on May 17 with a hands-on organic gardening workshop open to all. It will be led by Jack Schooley from the Illinois Extension Office.  

The Riverside Community Garden is hosted at Ascension Lutheran Church on Nuttall Road. All the produce grown is donated to two local food pantries and the summer school lunch program at the Church. 

Started in 2019, it has become a place for people to develop skills, have fun, and build friendship while serving the community. They had an Earth Day festival, built a seed library, held a plant swap and even have summer yoga classes in the garden.  “It’s been kind of magical,” says Doherty.

Founding board member Bridget Doherty grew up in Riverside and knew about community gardens from her time living in the city. When she moved back, she wanted to learn about vegetable gardening and realized there were other people who wanted to as well and “we just kind of went for it.” 

All three gardens welcome volunteers from the greater community, offering opportunities to learn and grow healthy food for themselves and the community.