Garfield Park Community Garden Network Kicks Off Spring Season
GARFIELD PARK — Community gardeners began work this weekend cultivating seedlings inside a West Side greenhouse to be grown and sold this summer at the Garfield Park Neighborhood Market.
The Garfield Park Garden Network, operated by the neighborhood’s community council, works with local community gardens that have space in the greenhouse to cultivate seedlings that are later fully grown at various sites.
The harvested crops are sold at the Garfield Park Neighborhood Market, also operated by the Garfield Park Community Council, at the Hatchery, 135 N. Kedzie Ave.
The garden network provides seedlings to be cultivated by community gardeners in the greenhouse at 4427 W. Fulton St. from about March through June. The seedlings include common crops such as tomatoes, carrots, radishes, string beans, cucumbers and okra. The greenhouse has space to plant more than 2,000 seedlings in a year, according to the network.
The Garfield Park Garden Network began in 2009, operating out of a greenhouse provided by the Garfield Park Conservatory. In 2011, it built its current greenhouse through funding provided by Kraft Foods.
Network coordinator Angela Taylor, who runs the greenhouse with her husband Sammie Taylor, said they started looking at options for getting produce to the community amid an excess of community gardens starting in Garfield Park.
“We live in a food desert,” said Angela Taylor. “A lot of blocks came forward [around 2009] and wanted to be community gardens, [which] is how we started the garden network. The first couple of years we had so much surplus produce and needed to figure a way to have it utilized.”
Gardeners can plant along the more than 1,000 square feet of space within the greenhouse, which has multi-level workbenches and 20-foot-long garden beds. Up to 30 different community gardens can have space in the greenhouse, network staff said.
The network also provides equipment and materials at the greenhouse that can be costly to beginning gardeners, such as soil mix, starting trays and wood chips. Community gardens in the network are also eligible to receive a delivery of soil and wood chips.
Seedlings are moved from the greenhouse in June to be fully grown at partner community gardens, staff said.
Once harvested, most of the produce is sold at the Garfield Park Neighborhood Market at the Hatchery, a food and beverage incubator in Garfield Park.
In the first year of the garden network, about 30 West Side community gardens operated between the greenhouse and outside locations. As produce yields increased, the network established the Garfield Park Neighborhood Market in 2012 to sell fruits and vegetables at affordable prices, Taylor said.
As prices for certain everyday grocery items have increased, Taylor said that she hopes Garfield Park residents can learn to use and appreciate locally grown produce.
“We need to pay attention, because [local gardening] may become our reality … us being required to grow our own food,” Taylor said. “I don’t have to go to the store to get lettuce, tomato or cucumbers to make a salad. I can make a real robust salad with carrots, radishes and kale.”
Twelve gardens are currently active in the network and five were present for the season launch at the greenhouse, Taylor said. To learn more about the garden network, visit the Garfield Park Community Council’s site.
