Last month I had the pleasure of attending the North Lawndale Greening Committee's garden tour. It was a change from doing the North Dearborn Garden Walk. The gardens themselves weren't much different, larger mostly, but the vibe was noticeably different. This garden tour was like visiting the gardens of friends you've known a long time. Among the gardens we toured where backyard gardens, a community garden, a garden built on an empty lot, the African heritage garden and the preSERVE garden. The preSERVE community garden in North Lawndale is a new urban greening effort. It is a project between the North Lawndale Greening Committee, NeighborSpace, the Chicago Honey Co-op and Slow Food Chicago. At one stop bottled water and homemade cookies were provided, in another gardeners brought out shopping bags and helped themselves to herbs and vegetables, in another a gardener deadheaded basil blooms on behalf of the plot owners, and at an urban arboretum we sampled apples. No need to participate in the veggie theft of community gardens since everyone was so willing to share the bounty. The crowd itself was diverse and among the older gardeners were some of the younger ones I learned had been inspired by the White House garden when I blogged about the African-American Heritage Seed Collection earlier in the year. Below are a few pictures of the tour that I recommend you attend next year.
This looks like a fun tour. Reminds me of my Ypsi Garden Walk where you feel at home in the gardens as opposed to worrying you might knock something over, lol. The chard in that one raised bed is amazing. Where is photo #11? It looks so open and rural and non-Chicagoy! And another photo to inspire my own plants--my trumpet vine really needs to bloom!
It was more than fun, I think it was pretty awesome. That's part of the neighborhood garden at the Chicago Honey Co-op. I'm usually a trumpet vine hater, but that one was so pretty I had to take a picture of it. Although, when we drove to California I saw it growing along Route 66 in too many open spots to recommend people actually planting it.
Cool! What constitutes the North Lawndale neighborhood? Do you have a map? Thx for sharing the pix.
Here you go. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Lawndale,_Chicago There's a lot about the neighborhood that you can find by Googling.
Those gardens are wonderful! Sounds like a great day. Very inspiring!