Albany Park Community Garden: A community-run garden located on Lawrence, right at Sacramento in the heart of Albany Park with over 100 individual raised beds and several beds designated as ‘Grow to Give’. All produce from ‘Grow to Give’ is donated back to the community. [IG]
Avondale Gardening Alliance: The mission of the Avondale Gardening Alliance is to mobilize neighbors to maximize the benefits of urban agriculture. They strive to create a safer and healthier Avondale, where people share their skills and resources to create a network of support for sustainable gardening practices. [Website] [IG]
Catatumbo Cooperative Farm: Catatumbo Cooperative Farm is an emerging immigrant, queer, gender non conforming, workers’ cooperative farm located in South Chicago. [IG]
Chicago Community Gardeners Association: Chicago is home to hundreds of community gardens, and the Chicago Community Gardeners Association has created a network of those gardeners that is truly gardener-designed and gardener-led, to ensure the sustainability and vibrancy of Chicago gardens for years to come. CCGA is composed of working groups that meet regularly to support community gardens through education and networking events as well as providing material resources. CCGA helps to find solutions to common challenges such as leadership transitions, access to water and land, and community organizing. [Website]
Drake Gardens Chicago: A nonprofit community garden in Albany Park with an apiary, food pantry and educational programming. [IG]
El Paseo Garden: El Paseo Garden is located in Pilsen, a historically working class Latinx community in Chicago– and also a neighborhood known for its rich Mexican culture, activism, and strong sense of place. Since 2009, El Paseo Community Garden has been fostering community and wellness for Pilsen residents through land stewardship, conservation, community-design, education, programming, gardening, and more. This one acre of community-managed and NeighborSpace protected land is maintained by volunteers and donations and celebrates Pilsen’s diversity, history and culture while connecting residents with nature and each other. El Paseo’s mission is to empower through nature. [Website] [IG]
First Nations Garden: First Nations Garden (Wiinso, Wiikonge Otishinikaaso) was established in the Spring of 2019 due to community organizing led by the Chi-Nations Youth Council. They provide a healing space for Chicago’s First Nations communities and promote public knowledge and appreciation of Chicago’s Indigenous landscape and ecosystems. [Website] [IG]
Garden Resources of Woodlawn (GROW): GROW (Garden Resources of Woodlawn) is a non-profit organization to support Woodlawn greening and beautification in yards, community gardens, vacant lots, parks, schools, residential streets and business streets. Woodlawn is a neighborhood located on the south side of Chicago. [Website]
Global Garden Refugee Training Farm: A vacant lot transformed into a vibrant farm in which 75+ refugees grow vegetables in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood. [Website] [IG]
Grow-Op x OTIS: Incubating OTIS Fresh Farm in Back of the Yards + marketing and fundraising support for local growers. [IG]
Kenwood Gardens: Community garden stewarded by Theaster Gates’s Rebuild Foundation, offering free yoga classes and other programming. [Website]
Libations to the Ancestors Garden: Libations to the Ancestors Garden is Getting Grown Collective’s third project and engages the collective’s interest in learning cultivation, harvest and processing practices of medicinal herbs and native plants .[Website]
Mariposa Garden / El Jardín de las Mariposas: El Jardin de las Mariposas started in Pilsen 1998. The garden committee decided that the garden should focus on plants native to the region and would include artwork featuring prehistoric Mexico. [Website] [IG]
Milpa Mizan: Stewarded by Femme Defensa, Milpa Mizan is a small team of urban farmers working to secure a space in Pilsen to grow food and offer educational opportunities for the community. [Website]
Montrose Metra Community Gardens: Chicago community garden with raised-bed plots, native plants, a fruit orchard, & community spaces along the Metra train tracks at Ravenswood Avenue. [Website] [IG]
Mozart Community Garden: Mozart Community Garden is a neighbor-run garden in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago, IL – the result of concerned neighbors coming together to reduce violence in the area, creating a safe and inviting space. [Website] [IG]
NeighborSpace Chicago: NeighborSpace is the only nonprofit urban land trust in Chicago that preserves and sustains gardens on behalf of dedicated community groups. They support more than 100 community gardens – through property ownership, insurance, water, stewardship, education, tool lending, project planning, fundraising support, troubleshooting, and more — so that community groups can focus on gardening and on their community-building vision, generating food, beauty, play, health, and safety for their neighborhoods. [Website] [IG]
preSERVE Garden: The preSERVE Garden provides environmental integrity to green space, increases awareness and pleasure of growing good food, and shares the enjoyment of gardens with the entire community. preSERVE is a partnership between Slow Food Chicago, the North Lawndale Greening Committee, the Chicago Honey Co-Op, and NeighborSpace. [Website]
Ramshackle Farm: Queer punk rock farmers in Harvard, IL. [IG]
Roots and Rays Garden: La Huerta Roots and Rays is a volunteer-run community garden located in Pilsen, Chicago. It is a place for families, friends, and neighbors to come together to grow food, tell stories and share experiences. It is a place to build community. [Website] [IG]
Sistas in the Village: Sistas in the Village is an urban farm in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago committed to growing food to nourish an intergenerational African Indigenous community. [Website] [IG]
Saint James Community Farm: The Saint James Community Farm is a partnership between Just Roots Chicago and Saint James Catholic Church and Food Pantry. The 1/2 acre farm is located on Chicago’s south side and offers fresh, organic and culturally affirming food, educational programming and community building events. [Website]
Star Farm: Star Farm Chicago is a non-profit urban farm and landscaping service established in 2016 in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.They work to increase access of local organic produce through farmers markets, pop-ups, delivery, and a local foods co-op. [Website] [IG]
Sunflower Soule Farm: Located in Back of the Yards, Sunflower Soule’s farm mission is to provide organically grown produce that is accessible to all members of the community regardless of income. [Website] [IG]
Three Little Birds Garden: A nonprofit community garden, housed at the Senior Suites of Hegewisch in Chicago. [IG]
The Urban Canopy: The Urban Canopy is pioneering the local food cycle to create a more sustainable and equitable food system in Chicago. They are growers, distributors, composters and community members who seek to positively impact our city’s environment, people’s health, and local economy. They strive to make healthy produce accessible to all, reduce the miles fresh food travels, keep food waste out of landfills, and create and maintain local jobs. [Website] [IG]
Urban Growers Collective: Urban Growers Collective is a Black- and women-led non-profit farm in Chicago, Illinois working to build a more just and equitable local food system. They aim to address the inequities and structural racism that exist in the food system and in communities of color. They provide hands-on job training and create economic opportunity for youth, and beginner BIPOC farmers. Our aim is to provide jobs while working to mitigate food insecurity and limited access to affordable, culturally-affirming, and nutritionally-dense food. [Website] [IG]
West End Garden: The West End Garden was initiated in Spring 2021 by Evanston Fight for Black Lives (EFBL), and is cultivated by community volunteers from the Hovland Court block along with EFBL. This community garden grows for the neighbors, and also shares via the local free fridges and the C&W Foundation’s Saturday morning food drive. [Website]
Xochiquetzal Peace Garden: Community garden in Pilsen stewarded by neighbors and students at Whittier Elementary School. [Website] [IG]
Zafra Farm: Incubator farm on the South Side of Chicago owned and led by QTBIPOC growers. [IG]
Zumwalt Acres: Zumwalt Acres is a regenerative agriculture community working to develop a model of land stewardship in Illinois that is ecologically sustainable and socially responsible, rooted in Jewish values. [Website]
beyond november 