Chicago Farm Lab connects community and students to urban agriculture by growing food with our community and teaching agricultural science to CPS students. This hands on approach will continue to pass down our knowledge to future generations. By teaching what we practice we are not only growing food; we are growing sustainable people
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At Chicago Farm Lab, we pursue our mission guided by the following core values:
Our strength comes from welcoming diverse experiences, cultures and points of view, and from respecting the history of Hanson Park and the natural world that surrounds us.
We are committed to support the efforts of all those in the community who share in the work and vision of building sustainable urban agriculture.
We share in the collective responsibility to steward and protect the earth’s resources. We are committed to ethical business practices that ensure an economically healthy organization.
We serve as a model for innovative land use by developing programs and strategies to grow food and support the local economy.
We believe that social justice must include access to nourishing, fresh food, and a broad opportunity for people to embrace the natural world in a meaningful way. If we are a great nation, we must be a nation that knows how to feed itself.
The History Of The Land
Before 1835, the land known as Hanson Park was inhabited by the Native American Blackhawk tribe. The town of Craigin was started by George Merrill sometime after 1835 when the native population moved west to what is now the corner of Grand and Armitage. Grand Avenue was then known as Army Trail Road (and that corner was called Whiskey Point).
One story was that the land was purchased for a whiskey bottle. A hotel was built in 1862, but the area remained mostly rural until the Craigin Brothers built a tin plate and iron processing plant in the area in 1882 and the Chicago-Milwaukee RR built a station at LeClaire to accommodate movement of their goods into the city.
By the early 1890’s the farmland found in the area was turned into housing, some of which still remain. Within 2 years of the plant opening in 1887, 200 people lived in the area as other businesses opened. By 1910 3800 residents lived in the area and this multiplied by three when the industrial areas thrived in the 1920s. Many churches were built in the area to accommodate all the religious and ethnic groups moving into the neighborhood.
The Hanson family farm owned by David Hanson, was donated to the city for recreational use and allotment gardens that were designated to feed the local residents, which it did through the mid-1950’s and lovingly referred by locals to as “The Cabbage Patch”. Chicago’s Belmont-Craigin neighborhood continues this legacy by bringing back fresh, locally grown produce to the community with the founding of Chicago Farm Lab. We honor this history in the present and work to build an ecologically balanced, vibrant urban agricultural hub that contributes to the healing of our environment in a future rich with urban biodiversity and opportunity for a creative economy.
Timeline of Our Garden
2014-2016
After receiving permission from CPS in 2013, Prosser School Community Garden started in the spring of 2014. Hundreds of volunteers came to build our first 12 beds, and our founding gardeners began to grow food for their families. Through generous funding from The Oppenheimer Family Foundation , CPS LearnWell grants, The CRS Rice Bowl Grant and Alderman Gilbert Villegas’s ,Ward 36 PB Budget award we were able to excavate for a fruit orchard. Openlands and Virtue Cider provided free trees. In addition, Prosser teacher Ms. Marcia Dorfman secured the grant for our first tool shed, the red “barn” which was beautifully immortalized into our logo by internationally renowned artist and beloved husband of Marnie Ware, Mr. Chris Ware
2017 -2019
These years were a time of immense growth and excitement. In 2017 the non-profit organization Chicago Farm Lab was founded. CPS and Big Green home (formerly Kitchen Community) installed our large Learning Garden. In 2019, the Belmont Cragin community once again voted to support our proposal for a state of the art underground irrigation system in the garden, which has truly enabled us to thrive. WBEZ Chicago celebrity and all around wonderful human and American Humorist Peter Sagal and The Oak Park Wednesday Journal awarded us with a generous grant of support. In addition, we received a small Captain Planet Small grant for plants, seeds and supplies. Eco Garden Bed Systems out of Wisconsin donated 28 of their patented raised beds to us. Then, Chicago Cares donated the tools and soil to fill them and supplied the corporate volunteers to assemble them. We are forever grateful to these organizations and individuals.
2020-2021
While the pandemic was frightening and ongoing, Prosser School Community Garden was a way to keep a sense of community while still in quarantine. For much of that first spring, the garden remained empty, except for Jim who pretty much single-handedly seeded the entire 2 acres with what we thought might be survival rations, as we all made bread, disinfected our groceries, and either worked remotely or braved the unknown as essential workers. Even during this very hard time, the plants and animals in the garden got a break from our human interference, which was interesting. See our "Pandemic Newsletter" here! "CFL Newsletter; Pandemic Edition!" In the Fall, we felt confident enough to meet carefully outside, donning our masks to plant 1,000 tulips, daffodils and crocus bulbs with our families in the orchard, thanks to Annie's Organics Garden Grant, and also Whole Kids Garden Grant, but many of our ongoing projects were stalled for quite a while as the world recovered.
2022 -2023
With the gradual ebbing of the pandemic, student and community volunteers came together in a way that we had never seen before to support and assist in planting, mending and rejuvenating the garden. There was a paradigm shift in the hearts and minds of our student volunteers. They rejected the darkened rooms and screens of their lockdown experiences and embraced just simply being outside, building, planting, socializing and dreaming about a better, kinder and greener future. Award winning graphic design professional, Tree Keeper, and master fermenter Jeanne Calabrese of Fedupferments volunteered her time and expertise to students with Slow Food USA growing kits and cheese making workshops for our students. In the summer of 2023, Chicago Farm Lab partnered with One Summer Chicago to finally pay our tireless and dedicated student collaborators. With this strong city program, we were able to accomplish in one summer what otherwise would have taken us three years. A significant grant from Big Green DAO allowed us to finish many stalled projects and get badly needed tools and soil. We also created a 100 straw bale garden experiment with a huge plant donation from Gesthemanes. In addition, CPS Office of Student Health and Wellness provided grants for irrigation maintenance and soil.
We need you to help us grow!
Please support us by donating to Chicago Farm Lab 501c3
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