Community Garden Club

Cultivating a community space in the North-Grand Garden for
intergenerational joy and learning.

Madeline Diaz, Community Member

Kayla Anderson, Teaching Artist

Class Information

Grade Levels: All Ages - children and adolescents are allowed to join if accompanied by an adult.

Class Schedule (days/times): Mondays & Wednesdays, 3:15pm - 5:15pm

Academic content: Botany, agriculture, cultural foodways, food systems, collaboration, entrepreneurship

Art forms: Gardening, Sculpture, Culinary Arts

Big Idea: Cultivating Community

Inquiry Question: How can we build a community around the North-Grand Garden, and make the space welcoming to not only students, but to alumni, parents, grandparents, siblings, and neighbors?

2023 is North-Grand Community Garden Club's first year! You can see the activities of our Student garden club here, here, and here. In Summer our Community Club will be meeting on Saturdays 10am - 12pm from June 17th - August 19th.

Community Garden Club Goals:

To build a welcoming and beautiful community space in the North-Grand High School Garden
To encourage intergenerational knowledge sharing, learning, and fellowship
To support the work of our student gardeners, especially during the Summer, Fall, and school break periods
To build and maintain the garden so that it can continue to be used in the future and does not fall back into disrepair

An edible garden is a year-round project that requires many hands to maintain. While our students have been working hard since 2022 to build and tend the school garden, we realized they would need support from the community to achieve their goals of making the garden a welcoming space and permanent resource of the school. While working outside in the Spring and Summer of 2022, we received many community visitors who expressed excitement that the garden space was finally being used. As parents, grandparents, and children began to join us during our summer sessions, we saw the positive impact this had on students. Many of our students have parents and grandparents who garden or farm, either here in Chicago, or in their homelands. They appreciate the knowledge that adults have to share with them, and enjoy learning from each other. They also light up when given the chance to teach younger children about gardening. In 2023, we started a North-Grand Community Garden Club, open to all family members and neighbors of North-Grand High School.

Ongoing: Recruitment

In order to start a Community Garden Club, we've been trying creative ways to get the word out. We've put posters up around the school and neighboring businesses, attended PAC meetings, and brought our fliers (and plants!) to report card pickup and new student orientation days.

For the summer, we're extending our efforts to nearby park district community meetings, dog parks, and other gathering places. We think having Saturday hours and nice weather will serve us well!

Fall: Harvest Saturdays

We started off our Community Club recruitment by hosting open Harvest Days every Saturday morning in October. We received several families of parents, grandparents, and children who explored the garden together and took home produce!

Above: Two children get a tour of the garden from their older sister, Micaela. Below: Graciela and Olivia show off some harvested glass gem corn!

Graciela, her daughter Olivia, and husband Jaime became core members of our Community Garden Club, helping us plant, harvest, pull weeds, and build things! Olivia loves to show her mightiness with garden tools & enjoys eating freshly picked veggies!

Fall: Rat Hunting & Pumpkin Carving

One day when Mrs. Hetzel mentioned our rat problem in class, one of her students Jason had a great idea for a potential solution - he asked his mom Sondra if they could bring their cat to school. We brought the cat out into the garden and let him roam -- he didn't catch any rats, but had a fun time exploring the bushes!

Sondra helped us carve pumpkins to decorate our classroom for Halloween, and from that point on became a staple in our Community Club, showing up every meeting to help with the garden!

Fall: Garden Cleanup!

Our garden has a big trash problem. Garbage blows in from the street and from in front of the school. Throughout the fall and winter, we did several big trash pickups. In the summer, we're going to create decorations on the fence that will hopefully block some garbage from blowing in. Below: Tanya, Kayla, Sondra, and Madeline looking triumphant after a clean up!

Fall: Planting Garlic

Before winter hit, we braves the cold to plant garlic! The garlic has been growing all winter and spring, and will be harvested at the end of summer!

Winter: Succulent Propagation

Inspired by our student's terrariums, Madeline brought in leaves from succulents at her mother's house. We've been propogating them in soil for use in future terrariums for our Community Club!

Winter / Spring: Seed Starting, Planting, and Garden Prep

We spent cold days inside planting and tending seeds, and warmer days outside preparing the soil and pulling weeds! We often found that these meditative, hands-on activities helped take our minds off of daily worries and troubles. Below: Sondra waters some tulsi and anise hyssop that she planted the previous week.

Below: Kayla, Madeline, Luz, and Elizabeth pull weeds and tend to the tulips and other plants that made it through the winter.

Spring: Mulch Madness

We had been wanting mulch between the garden beds for a long time, to keep the area clear of tall weeds and snakes. When a big mountain of mulch got dropped off unexpectedly, blocking our garden entrance, we had to act fast to clear weeds, lay down weed-blocking fabric, and move mulch. Graciela, Jaime, Olivia, and Sondra showed up and helped us get the ground work done so that the football team could shovel mulch the following week.

Olivia brought out her vicious weed killer energy, and Jaime cleared the ground faster than any of us thought was possible. Sondra and Madeline put in hard hours laying the weed-blocking fabric. Olivia named this pile of mulch "Olivia and Miss Kayla's Mulch Mountain" and came to help the football team distribute it. She proved to us all that she could handle a big shovel and was just as good at shoveling mulch as a teenage boy!

Plans for Summer

This summer, we're excited to run our club on Saturdays from 10am - 12pm! We're going to do craft projects for the garden each week, including painting rocks, decorating the fence, making new welcoming signage, and building benches. We'll also be tending the garden in and out of club times to keep it growing for North-Grand students and the community.

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