Chicago Agricultural & Gardening Resource Study

Agricultural & Gardening StartStart up Resources

Stephanie Salinas

Educational Resouces, Workshops and Classes 1. City Farm: City Farm is a sustainable organic farm bordering two very diverse Chicago neighborhoods: Cabrini Green and The Gold Coast. 1204 N. Clybourn, Chicago, IL 60610 .

2. Resource Center: assists community organizations and schools in recovering vacant lots for community use. Also sells materials for making compost bins collected from recycled plastic lumber and scrap wood. www.resourcecenterchicago.org, Clybourn and Division, Chris Anderson at (773)398-3451 cityfarm@resourcecenterchicago.org 3. Creative Re-use Warehouse: established by Chicago’s Resource Center, collects resusable materials and redistributes them back into the community, particularly to artists and educators. $4.00 per bag of materials. Typical materials include textiles, ribbon, tile, wood, wire, foam core, and office supplies. www.chicagorecycling.org/index.htm. 222 E. 135th Place, Chicago, IL 60627. (773) 821-1351.

4. CSA Learning Center: works with community groups to develop new Urban Agriculture projects such as community gardens. Also offers educational opportunities offered in partnership with Growing Homes, Angelic Organics Farms and other urban gardens. Chicago Office, www.csalearningcenter.org, Rasha Abdulhadi, rasha@csalearningcenter.org 773.288.5462 5. Growing Home: a non-profit enterprise serving homeless and low-income people through a transitional employment program in the organic farming business. www.growinghomeinc.org, Harry Rhodes, 312.435.8601,info@growinghomeinc.org. 59th on S. Honore Street Chicago, IL 60636 6. Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance: offers beekeeping and composting programs, along with shows and events. www.garfieldconservatory.org, 300 North Central Park Ave. Chicago, Illinois 60624. (773) 638-1766.

7. Growing Power: nonprofit organization that offers education and collaboration between community parteners.

Grwoing Power offers tours, workshops, internships as well as a Commercial Agriculture Program to those interested in farming techniques. Technologies include composting, bee-keeping, aquaculture, Project design, green house production and hoop house construction. www.growingpower.org, Erika Allen, erika@growingpower.org, 414.527.1546. 2215 W. North Avenue, Chicago, IL 60647

8. Sweet Beginnings/Bee Line: An Urban Honey Transitional Jobs Initiative as a strategy for providing local employment for formerly incarcerated individuals and other low-income North Lawndale residents, and for promoting community economic development. www.nlen.org/programs/index.php. 3700 West Fillmore Street, Chicago, IL. 9. Chicagoland Gardening Magazine: offers classes and workshops to those interested in gardening.

10. Windy City Harvest: offers monthly short courses to train adults in sustainable horticulture and urban agriculture.

Provided by Chicago Botanic Garden in collaboration with Chicago City Colleges. Courses offered at the Arturo Valasquez Institute, 2800 S. Western Avenue. http://www.chicagobotanic.org/windycityharvest.

10. Growing Power: Inspiring communities to build sustainable food systems that are equitable and ecologically sound, creating a just world, one food-secure community at a time. 3333 S. Iron Street, Chicago, Illinois 60608.

773.376.8882. chicago@growingpower.org

Chicago Nurseries This is a view of Chicago’s small scale, specialty plant nurseries. Though they may not carry vegetable plants or seeds, they do provide ornamental grasses, trees, annuals and perennials.

Gethsemane Garden Center 5739 N Clark St Chicago, IL 60660

City Escape 3022 W Lake St Chicago, IL 60612

Munro Landscape Inc 10057 S Western Ave Chicago, IL 60643

Charles J Fiore Nursery 2901 W Ferdinand St Chicago, IL

Grand Street Gardens 2200 W Grand Ave Chicago, IL

Marguerite Gardens, Inc. 1624 W. Wolfram Chicago, IL

Fertile Gardens 1646 W Diversey Pkwy Chicago, IL

St. Boniface Cemetery 5801 N Clark St Chicago, IL

Farmers Market Garden Center 4110 N Elston Ave Chicago, IL

Long's Garden Ctr 11226 S Halsted St, Chicago, IL

Advance Garden Center 2933 N Central Ave Chicago, IL

Clovers Garden Ctr 1411 N State Pkwy Chicago, IL

B A Florist & Nursery Co 1000 W Randolph St Chicago, IL 60607

Ace Landscaping & Garden Ctr 2700 E 95th St, Chicago, IL Creative Lawn & Garden Ctr 5601 N Elston Ave, Chicago, IL

Big Box Store Garden Centers This is a mapping of various Big Box stores throughout the city that have garden centers. These locations would be ideal for commercial gardening equipment, mulch, wood, planters to plants. The mapping includes: 30+ Home Depots 40+ Ace Hardware Stores Menard”s Stores Walmart Garden Centers Lowe’s Garden Centers Many of these big box stores are located in Chicago center and North Chicago areas. There are fewer stores in the city’s South and West sides. This may be due to less demand, less density or less favorable market conditions, such as demographic make-up of lowerincome populations.

Mulch Sites Mulch is provided by through the City of Chicago’s Christmas Tree Recycling Program. Residents drop off their old Christmas trees and the trees are mulched on site at various park locations. This program ends January 27, so mulching has to be done early.

1. Bessemer Park , 8930 S. Muskegon Ave. 2. Clark Park, 3400 N. Rockwell 3. Forestry Site, 900 E. 103rd St. 4. Garfield Park , 100 N. Central Park Ave. 5. Grant Park , 900 S. Columbus 6. Humboldt Park Boathouse, 1369 N. Sacramento 7. Jackson Park , 6300 S. Cornell 8. Kennedy Park, 11320 S. Western 9. Kelvyn Park , 4438 W. Wrightwood 10. Lake Meadows Park, 3117 S. Rhodes 11. Lincoln Park, Cannon Dr. at Fullerton Ave.(Parking lot east of Cannon Dr.) 12. Margate Park, 4921 N. Marine Dr. 13. Marquette Park, 6700 S. Kedzie 14. McKinley Park, 2210 W. Pershing Rd. 15. Mt. Greenwood Park, 3721 W. 111th St. 16. North Park Village, 5801 N. Pulaski Rd. 17. Norwood Park, 5801 N. Natoma 18. Portage Park, 4100 N. Long 19. Riis Park, 6100 W. Fullerton 20. Rowan Park, 11546 S. Avenue L 21. Sheridan Park, 910 S. Aberdeen St. 22. Warren Park, 6601 N. Western Ave 23. Wentworth Park, 5625 S. Mobile 24. E-Z Tree Recycling. 7050 S Dorchester Ave. Chicago, IL 60637

Number of Resources by Neighborhood This is an analysis measuring all of the previous start up resources by community area. The resources previously mentioned, education, nurseries, big box stores and mulch sites- have been compiled and numbered by community area. This numbering can be used to determine the density of resources in areas of Chicago. The darker shade of purple represents areas with more resources and the light shades of purple represent lesser amounts of resources available. The white areas indicate that there are none of the measured resources available.

The area just North of Chicago’s center has the greatest number of start up resources. The trend continues as you move out from the center to the outlying community areas. There are areas with few resources on the city’s West and South sides.

Resource Density 0 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 12

Correlation Between Resources and Farmer’s Markets?

This is an analysis measuring the previous start up resources by community area and the number of farmer’s markets in the city. This mapping can be used to determine whether the number of resources is in an indicator of agricultural activity. The green dots represent the farmer’s markets. The colored regions represent Chicago’s community areas. The shades of purple indicate the number of resources available by community area, from the most in darker shades to the least in the lighter shades.

There does appear to be a correlation between the number of resources and the number of farmer’s markets. Once again, the area just North of Chicago’s center has the greatest number farmer’s markets as well as a a collection of community areas with greater number of start up resources available. Most of the city’s farmer’s markets are located in Chicago North and Northwest community areas. There are fewer farmer’s markets on the city’s West and South sides.

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Resource Density

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Farmers Markets

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Stephanie Salinas BA Landscape Architecture salinas3@illinois.edu