Windy City Harvest is offering a series of monthly short courses on organic vegetable production starting in January 2010.

Workshop Topics & Dates:

Crop Planning January 23
Seed Starting February 27
Season Extension March 27

Window-box or Container Gardens April 24
Building Healthy Soil May 22

Organic Pest Control June 26
Harvest Techniques July 24
Cover Cropping August 28

Seed-Starting: Cool-Season Crop Planning September 25

Season-Extension Techniques October 23
Troubleshooting Cool-Season Production November 27

Fruit Tree Pruning December 2010

All workshops are held Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon in the greenhouse classroom at the Arturo Velasquez Institute, 2800 S. Western Avenue. The cost is $30 each or $25 for five or more courses. All materials and handouts are provided. Workshops are taught by Chicago Botanic Garden and Windy City Harvest staff.

You can download registration form here.

Empty Bottle Farmers Market to Open Dec. 19

Ever wish Famers Markets lasted all year round so you could see the actual person who grew your wintry vegetables, made your tasty preserves or baked your delicious breads even when the weather outside is frightful?  Ever wish that if you had a particularly rough one and didn’t manage to peer your weary eyes outside to the sun until after noon you could still roll your toxic shell over to a Farmers Market and still get healthy deliciousness in the afternoon?

Enter the Empty Bottle Farmers Market, making its debut appearance on Saturday, December 19^th.  Featuring 12 local vendors with everything from handspun wool to organic herbs and hand-sugared jellies, we present our version of a Farmers Market.  Tables will be set up in the Empty Bottle from 11am to 5pm, with vendors hawking their wears all afternoon to the back drop of the Empty Bottle’s favorite tunes and delicious beverages to warm you from the inside-out.  Entry is free, the booze will be flowing at our usual wallet friendly prices so you can spend your hard-earned cash on some home-grown food.

The Empty Bottle Farmers Market will be a monthly occurrence throughout the winter.  Our vendors for December 19 are selected, but if you’d like additional information about the Market and how to have goods considered for a place in the Bottle, email production@emptybottle.com.

Vendors participating include Videnovich Farms, Tomato Mountain Farm and Earth First Farms.

Chicago Tonight – Urban Chickens

more about "Chicago Tonight – Urban Chickens", posted with vodpod

AUA Fall Membership Meeting Sept. 30

All are welcome to attend this informational and working membership meeting; please bring a potluck dish to share.

Mad City Chickens Screening

In Chicago for a limited engagement:
SEE Mad City Chickens, the independent documentary about America’s backyard chicken movement. Meet the filmmakers and Learn About the Backyard Chicken Movement in Chicago.

September 22 Tuesday (Chicago)
Meet the filmmakers at Hull-House Museum’s Rethinking Soup 12-1:30PM
Gathering, Film & Discussion in Logan Square 6:30-9PM

September 23 Wednesday (Evanston)
Film & Discussion 7:30-9PM

From fresh backyard eggs to the family’s new favorite pet, the urban chicken is moving up higher in the pecking order of human importance.  Told with humor and heart, the new documentary Mad City Chickens (2008, 79 min.) takes us on an entertaining tour of what’s fast becoming a new backyard chicken movement in America.

IN CHICAGO – TWO Events on Tuesday
Sept 22    12-1:30PM     Presentation & Discussion
Hear about the making of Mad City Chickens over a fresh soup and salad lunch. Join filmmakers and members of the Chicago Chicken Enthusiasts at Hull House Museum’s ReThinking Soup

Hull House Museum at UIC, 800 S Halsted Chicago, IL
Residence Dining Hall
Parking: Metered parking on street or garage on the east side of Halsted, north of Taylor St.
Public transportation: 2 blocks south on Halsted from the Blue Line’s UIC-Halsted stop.

Sept 22    6:30-9PM    Gathering, Film & Discussion
See the film, meet the filmmakers, and learn about backyard chickens in Chicago. Join filmmakers and Chicago Chicken Enthusiasts at Armitage Baptist Church in Logan Square
Co-presented with Angelic Organics Learning Center.

6:30-7:30PM Gathering & Information Sharing
7:30- 9PM Film & Discussion
Armitage Baptist Church, 2451 N Kedzie (enter on Albany St)
Parking: Metered parking on street until 9PM, or use 2 church lots
Public transportation: 2 blocks south of the Logan Square stop on the Blue Line ; also 1 block north of Fullerton bus stop.

IN EVANSTON on Wednesday
Sept 23 7:30-9PM       Film & Discussion
See the film, meet the filmmakers, and learn about backyard chickens in Evanston with Reeltime Film and Video Forum. Co-presented with the Evanston Food Policy Council.

Evanston Public Library,1703 Orrington Ave, Evanston, IL (1st floor community room)
847.448.8600
Parking: Metered parking on street or in nearby lot.

Public transportation: 2 blocks east of Davis St. stop on Purple Line.

Admission is free to all three events

We welcome donations to defray costs
of bringing the film and filmmakers to Chicago!

Organized by
Angelic Organics Learning Center
Evanston Food Policy Council
Reeltime Film and Video Forum

We thank our sponsors and hosts for their generous assistance

Armitage Baptist Church
Earth First Farms
Evanston Public Library
Hull-House Museum at UIC

Vegetable Garden at Cook County Jail

The last place you expect to see a vegetable garden is behind tall fences topped off with razor wire, but at the Cook County Jail there is a 13 thousand square-foot vegetable garden grown by inmates. This vegetable garden is a joint effort by The Cook County Sheriff’s Department of Community Supervision and Intervention and The University of Illinois Extension. The inmates who work the garden are non-violent offenders serving time under county sentencing guidelines for cases involving drugs or a DUI.

via Vegetable Garden at Cook County Jail – Chicago Garden.

Five Best Cities For Urban Gardening

Though urban farming has been around since the days of Machu Picchu, urban gardens are only recently becoming popular in U.S. cities. To make you immediately nostalgic for those quickly disappearing summer days, Causecast wanted to take a look at the five American cities with the best urban gardening track record. Anyone can plant a garden with the right inspiration, however, so read up and consider what you can do in your community.

continue reading Five Best Cities For Urban Gardening.

Growing Home’s Annual Harvest Celebration — Sept. 12

Join Growing Home staff and interns for tours, cooking demos, music, u-pick produce, a farm stand, and a picnic lunch at Growing Home’s 10-acre USDA certified organic farm.

Saturday September 12, 2009
11:00 am – 2:30 pm
Les Brown Memorial Farm
2539 N. 30th Road, Marseilles, IL

Questions or to RSVP
info@growinghomeinc.org or 773.549.1336

Fall Membership Meeting of AUA — Sept. 30

Location: Community Room at Garfield Conservatory at 5:30pm  (300 N Central Park Avenue) .

This meeting in open to all and will continue to be a resource to further your own efforts in Urban Agriculture or to get connected and begin new efforts.

The full agenda will be sent closer in September however the first charge is to push forward with a panel composed of the AUA subcommittees on Land Use, Education, Marketing, and Infrastructure.  These subcommittees have been reorganizing AUA’s resources for agricultural development in Chicago and are excited to report on work since the Spring meeting and solicit help on new action steps.  There will also be time for networking and announcements.

Chicago Gardeners: Dirty Fingernails Photo Contest – Chicago Garden

If you’re a gardener you probably look at a lot of books and magazines with hand models who have perfectly manicured nails holding tools, plants, seedlings or produce. If you’re anything like me you probably laugh at such ridiculousness. Anyone who spends time in a garden, no matter how small, knows that dirty nails come with the territory.

Visit ChicagoNow for more details on entering the photo contest. Deadline is Sept. 7.