Community Food Center and Learning Farm Meeting at the Oak Pak Conservatory, March 22, 2012 at 7pm
Interested in working on the PlanItGreen project to develop a Community Food Center/Learning Farm? Our first meeting will take place on Thursday, March 22, 2012 at 7pm at the Oak Park Conservatory, and will include presentations on a few different project models and community discussion of project ideas and next steps forward. To RSVP, contact liz@sevengenerationsahead.org.
Chicken-Keeping Class at Green Home Experts - March 27th
Tuesday, 3/27 - 6:15 to 7:45pm -- at Green Home Experts, 811 South Blvd., Oak Park, IL 60302 (708) 660-1443 gogreen@ghexperts.com Thinking about raising chickens? Want to know what all this urban homesteading stuff is about? This class is designed for curious folks who are considering getting chickens, as well as for those who already have their own birds and who want to learn more. Come learn how to raise chicks, care for adult birds, and keep your neighbors happy! Presented by the MidWest’s only chicken consultant, Jennifer Murtoff. $20 per person. Please call or come to Green Home Experts to reserve your space. Reservations needed by March 24th, 2012. Green Home Experts will be offering discounted chicken care packages for all attendees. See attached flyer and share with others.
Interfaith Blessing of the Gardeners, Seeds & Gardening Tools
On Saturday, April 14 at 10am, Ascension Catholic Church will host their third annual blessing of gardeners, seeds and gardening implements. Ascension is located on the south west corner of East Avenue and Van Buren, one block north of the Eisenhower expressway. The Blessing service site is at the north (Van Buren) side of the church building at the statue of St. Francis.
The first service was initiated at the suggestion of Ascension’s Community Gardeners who tend the parish’s vegetable garden behind the parish center across East Avenue from the church.
Gardeners of all faiths are invited to attend this interfaith service with their implements of gardening. Submitted by John Owens.
Learn, Grow, Harvest & Eat!: 6-Part Organic Gardening Series
Register now, for a great 6-part organic gardening series sponsored by Green Community Connections and the Thoughtful Living Series (River Forest Park District Foundation and River Forest Library) will be offered by Master Gardener, Debbie Kong, starting on March 3rd. Cost for the series will be $120. Registration online at www.rfparks.org (River Forest Parks website) Please see attached flyer and share with others. All classes will be on Saturday mornings from 10am-noon. Please note that we have a break in between the March classes and the April classes. We will start indoors in March at the Keystone Center, and then move outdoors in April at River Forest United Methodist Church.
March 3, 10am-noon: Sowing Seeds: Winter Sowing and Starting Seeds Indoors
Location: The Keystone Center, 7920 Central Avenue, the Keystone Concession Building, River Forest, IL
Get a head start on your garden by winter sowing or starting seeds indoors with grow lights. Learn how easy it is to grow plants from seeds and discover the wide variety of unique heirloom or organic vegetables, fruits, and herb seeds available.
This workshop will teach you how to sow seeds step by step. You’ll learn which seeds to winter sow, how to care for your seedlings, and when to transplant them in to your garden. We’ll also cover Seeds 101, learn about the various types of seeds: heirloom, organic, non-gmo, and hybrids. Get tips, advice, and recommendations on how to grow your favorite plants.Resources and materials will be provided. This is a hands-on workshop. Each participant will take home a winter sown container with seeds ready to grow.
March 10, 10am-noon: Planning and Maintaining an Edible Organic Garden
Location: The Keystone Center, 7920 Central Avenue, the Keystone Concession Building, River Forest, IL
Grow healthy organic food in your own backyard and save time and money. This is a workshop to help you design your personal garden, get tips, expert advice, and resources for growing and maintaining an edible organic garden with vegetables, herbs and fruits.
This workshop focuses on Square Foot Garden methodology which can yields up to 5 times more produce over traditional gardening methods, uses 80% less space, and saves maintenance time. We’ll also cover how to care for and maintain your garden bed and learn how to deal with insects and pest organically without using harmful chemical. You’ll learn how to choose the right seeds or seedlings to grow in your garden and when to plant and harvest.
During this workshop participants will work on designing a Square Foot Garden Bed. Resources and materials will be provided. (Optional seed swap can also be included.)
March 17, 10am-noon: Composting 
Location: The Keystone Center, 7920 Central Avenue, the Keystone Concession Building, River Forest, IL
We’ll take the mystery out of backyard composting and you’ll learn how to take make great compost to grow a healthier garden. Composting is simple and maintaining a compost bin is easy. By making your own compost you’ll enrich the fertility of your soil, save money by not having to buy compost, and keep waste out of the landfills. During this workshop you’ll learn how to trouble shoot potential problems and how to remedy them.
We will also review the various types of compost bins and systems available and examples of some you can build. Resources for purchasing compost bins and project material lists to build your own compost bins will be provided.
April 14, 10am-noon: Extending the Growing Season: Growing a Spring and Winter Garden
Location: River Forest United Methodist Church, 7970 Lake Street, River Forest, IL
Learn how to extend the growing season and grow food during the spring and winter season. In this hands-on workshop and you’ll learn various methods to build inexpensive low tunnel hoops to grow cold weather crop such as kale, chard, a wide variety of lettuces, and more.
Low tunnels are like having your own greenhouse but at far less the cost of building one. You’ll learn which variety of plants grow best in the cold, when to sow and when to harvest them. With spring and winter gardening you won’t be dealing with insects, it’s low maintenance, and some of the plants are of the cut and come variety yielding longer harvests.
April 21, 10am-noon : Grow More Food in Less Space
Location: River Forest United Methodist Church, 7970 Lake Street, River Forest, IL
Learn how to double and even triple the produce you can grow in a small garden space. We’ll discuss the various growing methods, which plants produce the largest yields, how to plant your seeds or seedlings, and when to plant and harvest. We’ll be in the learning garden showing you planting techniques and you’ll get some hands on experience on sowing seeds.
This hands on workshop will help you plan a garden for larger yields and give you easy, practical, and time saving advice on how to care and maintain a high yield edible organic garden.
April 28, 10am-noon: Edible Container Gardening
Location: River Forest United Methodist Church, 7970 Lake Street, River Forest, IL
Container gardening is the easiest and fastest way to grow food. If you don’t have a garden, have limited gardening space, or poor soil, you can still grow an organic garden. You’ll learn how to make containers out of common recycled materials and get advice on which plants do best in containers. Learn how to grow your favorite foods including strawberries, tomatoes, watermelons, peas, cucumbers and beans. Each CAN be grown in 5 gallon bucket!
This hands-on workshop will show you how to make a basic SIP (Sub-Irrigated-Planters) aka Earthbox® out of common recycled materials. SIPs are low maintenance, conserve water and are a sustainable way to grow healthy organic food.
Meet Debbie Kong --
Debbie Kong is a Master Gardener, Master Composter, and Junior Master Gardener educator.
Passionate about cooking and eating healthful food, she started her own organic garden to teach her daughter how to eat better and help her understand where food comes from. Debbie has worked on an organic farm and a sustainable aquaponics farm, and taught gardening in the Chicago Public Schools. She volunteers at many local community gardens and enjoys teaching gardening to adults, families, and children.
Debbie considers herself an experimental gardener and likes designing new ways to grow more food in less space. She has even been successful at growing a winter garden in Chicago.
She graduated from UIC with a B.A. in Communication Design and is a User Experience/Information Architect and Art Director. When not in the garden, she is a co-blogger at greenroofgrowers.blogspot.com and can also be found at The Singing Seed on Facebook.
You can reach Debbie at Kongs
Related Post & Photos:
Winter Garden Trial
http://www.greenroofgrowers.
Community Vegetable Garden Training & Support
Homegrown Chicago Food Garden Network Community Vegetable Garden Training & Support Program Do you want grow your own food in a garden you share with friends and neighbors? Do you have a community food garden that you think could be better – so that more people would join and work more closely together? If so, then Openlands has just the program for you!!! Because you can’t have a “community garden” without a “community” Openlands offers four workshops to help members of your garden learn how to start and run the garden more effectively.
In addition, HomeGrown Chicago members will get a manual, garden materials, technical assistance and membership in the HomeGrown Chicago Food Garden Network.
Workshop 1- March 24, 2012 – 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Meet successful allotment gardeners and learn the history of this movement. Learn how to find, test and secure land for your garden. Workshop 2- March 31, 2012 – 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Learn how to establish a healthy organization as the first step to ensure that the garden is run effectively, cooperatively and sustainably. Workshop 3- April 7, 2012 – 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Designing the garden, and growing vegetables organically Workshop 4- April 14, 2012 – 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. . Hands-on demonstrations of building & installing garden structures such as raised beds & trellises in a garden
Classes will be held at Openlands' offices, 25 E. Washington, Suite 1650, Chicago. HomeGrown is for groups, not individuals. Each garden group is asked to send four representatives. Registration is limited and starts January 13, 2012 , ends March 10, 2012. For an application contact Julie Samuels jsamuels@openlands.org or call 312/863-6256 See also the Openlands web site for more information. Please see attached flyer and share with others
HomeGrown Chicago's emphasis on small, community-run vegetable gardens has strong roots in the Victory Garden movement that swept the country during World War II in response to food shortages. Massive citywide efforts were undertaken by an "army of gardeners" comprising hundreds of thousands of average citizens who fed Chicago through 1,500 community gardens and more than 250,000 home gardens that were carved out of vacant lots, backyards and city parks. Today, Chicago continues this tradition with an estimated 600 community gardens.
Free Exploration Station for Kids at the Oak Park Conservatory
Every Saturday morning, September – May, from 10:00 a.m. to noon and school holidays. It’s FREE!
Docents help children and others learn through interactive displays and games in the showrooms.
New topics every month. Here are the topics for February - May 2012:
- February topic: “Chocolate” Chocolate grows on trees. Look at the cacao tree in the Conservatory. Then learn now chocolate is extracted from the cacao pods and becomes the product we eat.
- March topic: “Birds” Birds have many different kinds of feet and beaks. Why? Some birds can fly long distances. Others can hardly fly at all. Learn lots about birds.
- April topic: “Sugar! Sugar! How Sweet It Is!” Sugar in the sugar bowl comes from sugar cane or sugar beets. But what about honey, molasses, raisins or maple syrup? Learn more about all kinds of sugar.
- May topic: “Flowers & Pollinators” How important are bees and bats? What is pollen? How does pollen get transferred from one flower to the other? Just how do bees see? Learn more about all of this in May.
For more information about events and programs at the Oak Park Conservatory, click here.
Building Urban Gardens Training
Submitted by Julie Samuels
Learn to garden with nature -- ecologically, inexpensively, and creatively -- in this exciting 6-week, hands-on course
Saturdays, 9:30am-12:30pm
January 28 - March 3, 2012
at the Garfield Park Conservatory, 300 N Central Park Drive, Chicago
at the Conservatory Stop on the Green Line
Sessions include:
- Planning and Designing Your Ecological / Organic Garden
- Using Composting to Build Healthy Soil
- Vegetables for your Beautiful, Edible Garden
- Perennials and Herbs for Diversity and Flavor
- Insects and Weeds: A Place for Everything and Everything in its Place
- Container Gardening, Design Roundtable & Potluck
Sponsored by Openlands. See the brochure for details and registration information.
Winter Markets in Oak Park March 4th & 24th
Winter markets coming to OPRF area:
Sunday, Mar 4, 2012 | 8:30am-1 pm St. Giles Catholic Parish, 1025 Columbian Ave., Oak Park, IL 60302
Saturday, Mar 24, 2012 | 9 am-1 pm Euclid Avenue UMC 405 Euclid Ave., Oak Park, IL 60302
Farmers & vendors at this week's market:
Read more about all of the farmers! ~ Dennanne Farm ~ Katherine Anne Confections ~ Herbally Yours ~ Kinkoona Farms ~ Maggie's Munchies ~ River Valley Ranch ~ Ruth and Phil's Gourmet Ice Cream ~ Urban Canopy ~ Scotch Hill Farm ~ Whimsical Acres
Download and print a copy of the complete scedule!
Dominican University's Many Sustainability Initiatives Achieve Measurable Results
by Melanie Weiss
Sustainability initiatives championed by students and staff at Dominican University in River Forest are making an impact on the campus and reducing the university’s carbon footprint. 4Rfuture is the sustainability plan which is under development that will be the guiding force for operational policies and procedures, campus development, and future commitments to sustainability. Final approval of the 4RFuture plan is expected in the spring of 2012.
The plan will align with PlanItGreen, which is the sustainability plan of Oak Park and River Forest. Dominican was one of the early adopters of PlanItGreen.
Bike Sharing
For a number of years, the Bike Sharing program has been something the university community has enjoyed as students pedal around campus and the community. According to Elena Maans, Dominican University Sustainability Coordinator, students can check out bicycles on campus much like they check books out of the library. “We also refurbished donated bikes and added them to the fleet,” added Maans.
Water Conservation
In 2002, Dominican became the first university in the Midwest to install parking lot permeable pavers, which has prevented more than 3.6 million gallons of rainwater from entering storm sewers annually. Another water conservation project, the bioswale, contours water around mature trees and filters silt from the runoff water.
The university also uses an existing cistern, a large water tank that was built in the 1920s, to collect rainwater from the buildings. The water is used for the irrigation of campus and in the air conditioning system in Parmer Hall. The cistern also gathers water that is pumped out of the basement of one of the residence halls. Because of the cistern system, Dominican has reduced the amount of potable water purchased by 4-6 million gallons per year.
Healthy Local Food
According to Maans, a community garden has been a “great collaborative effort” that began in May with the planting of vegetables and herbs. The bounty was then harvested throughout the season by staff, students and volunteers, including members of the university’s Eco Club. The Community Garden has donated some of its harvest to the Oak Park Food Pantry. The University also composted almost 50 pounds of coffee grounds from the student café to use on the community garden project.
Reduce, reuse and recycle
The university has campus wide recycling while it also has collections for electronic recycling and battery recycling. Office supplies such as ink cartridges and paper are also recycled. During the construction of Parmer Hall, Pepper Construction diverted up to 75% of construction waste from landfill with their construction waste management plan.
Energy Saving
In addition to projects that reduce waste and conserve water, Dominican also has taken many energy saving initiatives including installation of occupancy sensors, solar powered lights and nergy efficient boilers which save 100,000 therms per year. Energy efficient lighting was also installed on campus, saving 148,000 watts of electricity per year.
Click here for more information on Dominican University'green initiatives.
Aquaponics Projects to be featured in talk at Ascension School - Nov 20th at 2pm
Submitted by John Owens
New Development in Urban Agriculture
A new development in urban agriculture is surfacing just off the campus at Chicago State University and at selected high schools in Chicago’s West and South sides. Tilapia and Perch are being raised organically and symbiotically alongside crops of fresh vegetables. Chicago State professor Emmanuel Pratt is developing and promoting aquaculture in Chicago based on systems that he pioneered with Sweet Water Organics in Milwaukee. Follow this link http://sweetwater-organic.com/ for the Milwaukee story.
Learn about projects in the Chicago area
For the Chicago story please join us at 2 PM, Sunday, November 20 at the Ascension School Pine Room, 601 Van Buren, Oak Park. This presentation is sponsored jointly by the Ascension Catholic Church Community Garden Group, the Interfaith Green Network and the Shawnash Institute. Event Flyer to share with others is attached.
Urban Fish and Vegetable Farm in Milwaukee and now Chicago
Sweet Water Organics is an urban fish and vegetable farm. Our goal is to provide fresh, safe food for our local communities while maintaining reasonable prices and respecting our environment.We strive to become a resource for job creation and use of urban settings.
Raising Healthy Fish
In the Milwaukee operation Sweetwater Organics is currently raising approximately 35,000 Perch and 20,000 Tilapia in their sustainable aquaponics systems. In these re-circulating systems, the fish waste acts as natural fertilizer for plant growth and the plants act as a water filter.
Perch is low in Saturated Fat. It is also a good source of Selenium, and a very good source of Protein, Vitamin B12, Phosphorus and Manganese. Tilapia is low in Sodium. It is also a good source of Niacin and Phosphorus, and a very good source of Protein, Vitamin B12 and Selenium.