Peterson Garden is an organic, community vegetable garden on the corner of Peterson and Campbell in Chicago’s 40th Ward. Thanks to Asian Human Services (for letting us use the lot) and the support of Alderman Patrick O’Connor and his team, neighbors will once again be able to garden on this historic strip of Peterson Avenue.
The garden site was part of an original WW2 Victory Garden from 1942-1945. This revival Victory Garden is being launched for the 2010 growing season for Chicago residents who, like those gardeners almost 70 years ago, want to work with their neighbors to grow their own food.
Come garden with us! No experience necessary but enthusiasm is!
Each bed in Peterson Garden has 24 square feet of gardening space. That allows for a lot of fresh produce for your family and friends.
What you need to do:
- Plan on 2-3 visits per week to the garden
- Be committed to gardening organically
- Participate in educational opportunities (if you’re a new gardener)
Costs for gardening are on a sliding scale of $45- whatever you want to donate. This helps to pay for a raised bed, organic soil and other miscellaneous costs.
To learn how much you can really grow in a small space, click HERE.
If you’re interested in gardening withus, send an email to want2grow@petersongarden.org or call the Alderman’s office at 773.769.1140
Volunteer
Maybe you can’t commit to your own plot for a summer? That’s ok… if you want to tend the soil, water, weed and generally hang out in a great garden environment we’ll look forward to your assistance! The more gardeners, the happier the garden will be…
For more info on volunteering opportunities send an email to want2help@petersongarden.org
Donate
This garden is being built on the generous donations of time and resources from community members who know that edible gardening matters.
We’ll be providing several opportunities throughout the spring to participate in fundraisers and your financial donations are most welcome.
Farm4You is a program where you make a donation (sliding scale from $200+) and we tend a 6×4 foot bed for you. That’s 24 square feet of produce all summer long with no work on your part – quite a steal when you consider the price of heirloom tomatoes at the grocery store. (But, truthfully, your own tomatoes will taste much better.) If you are interested in this innovative program, please send an email to farm4you@petersongarden.org
Peterson Garden is in the process of being set up as a non-profit. Until that happens, donations will not be tax deductible. But they will be greatly appreciated.
For more information on how to support this great garden, please send an email to want2help@petersongarden.org
Learn
90% of the Victory Gardeners during WW2 didn’t know how to garden. That didn’t stop Chicago from becoming the national role model for Victory Gardening!
Like those neighbors of generations past, we’ll be there to help you put in your garden and answer your questions throughout the growing season in person and online.
Victory Garden History
The year – 1943 – was a banner growing season for Chicago Victory Gardens. As the war was in its second year, Chicagoans rallied community-by-community to do all they could for the effort and to alleviate the shortages caused by the largest international conflict of all time.
As transportation resources were diverted to moving troops and munitions, shipping fresh produce to market fell low on the priority list. In addition, the glut of low-wage workers from the Great Depression were finding jobs in military-related industries so farms were short-staffed and unable to meet the food demands of the nation. To complicate matters, materials previously used for canning food were now needed for weapons.
Simply put: there was not a lot of food available to buy.
In response to this crisis, massive coordinated efforts across Chicago – by hundreds of thousands of average citizens – created four gardening seasons (1942-1945) the likes of which have not been seen since…
Here’s some of the surprising facts of the “army of gardeners” in 1943 who fed Chicago, kept up morale and did their part for Victory:
- 90% of the people who grew Victory Gardens had never gardened before
- 14,000 plots were gardened by children on Chicago Park District land
- The largest Victory Garden in the country was in Chicago’s North Park neighborhood
- 800 families farmed this gigantic garden
- Victory Gardens produced 55,000 pounds of food during the summer of 1943
- Chicago-based companies such as Marshall Fields and International Harvester donated seeds and garden equipment
- A city ordinance prevented theft from Victory Gardens with fines of $600-$2,400 in today’s currency
- An estimated 172,000 Victory Gardens sprang up in Chicago in 1943
- 908 acres of which were on private/city lots or park property
- Communities held dozens of “harvest festivals” in the fall of 1943 including a city-wide festival at Soldier Field attended by thousands of Chicagoans
Fast forward to 2010… while not embroiled in the largest international conflict of all time, we do face food-related concerns and a new trend toward growing one’s own food is again sweeping the country:
- In 2009, stories about food safety were the #1 topic in food-related media
- Sales for home canning supplies have increased 30%
- Almost 8 million people started gardening in 2009 for the express purpose of growing their own food
It is important to remember that today’s challenges aren’t that different from those almost 70 years ago – our food supply is in jeopardy. It doesn’t matter the cause – we are feeling similar concerns. And, like those Chicagoans who had never gardened before, we can raise our own food on our backyards and neighborhood plots.
Chicago’s Victory Garden efforts were so coordinated and successful that our plan was sent out by the US Government to other major urban areas as a blueprint for success.
Perhaps, once again, we can rally and provide an example for our country in urban food production… who’s in?
