Rainbow City Gardens

At Crown Center we’ve been planting up our spring garden 🌱 When we transplant with kids we call it “a hole and a hill”— decide where you want your plant, make a little hill right next to the hole, drop in the plant and use that hill to fill in the gaps… and push down gently around the plant 🥰 Easy! Now that we’re past the last frost, anything can go in the garden. We’re so grateful for all of the gorgeous seedlings donated to our garden programs from 🥬

Thank you to the attendees of our Planting Your Salad Garden workshop at ! We covered why, what, when, where, and how to plant, with a focus on leafy greens and cool weather crops that can go in the ground *right now*! Gethsemane has an absolutely gorgeous selection of seedlings and participants created planter boxes with lettuce, dino kale, chard, and johnny jump up flowers 🌱 We also broadcasted seeds to start a bed of baby greens and added cilantro seeds as well 🥬 Sign up for our newsletter and you can get a digital copy of the information sheet we gave out in the class, which includes salad dressing recipes from The Cookbook! 🥗

We’re so excited to be back at ! Yesterday the youth had their first garden visit of the season. We explored the space with a sensory tour—smelling and tasting fresh lemon balm and spearmint—and learned about seed cycles. Youth also rolled up their sleeves to help w**d and plant milkw**d and other flower seeds. A wonderful day of hands-on learning and connection with nature! 🪏🌸 🌿

Join us for our next hands-on workshop in this **free** series at this Saturday 4/25 on Planting Your Salad Garden! 🥗🫜🥬🥕🥒🍅 Who doesn’t love a delicious salad? Even better when you can grow it yourself! Come learn easy tips for growing salad crops in both cool and warm weather. We’ll cover basic soil prep and garden design, optimal timing, direct sowing versus planting seedlings, maintenance recommendations, and harvest tips. We’ll do a live demo of transplanting companion plants, and you can try it out yourselves! This workshop welcomes beginners and gardeners of all levels. Bonus: we’ll share some lovely recipes for DIY salad dressing too. See you there!

🌳While we’re always doing our best to care for and honor the earth, it’s important to take a moment to focus on our intentions… there is always room to keep learning and to do even better 🌍💗 This is why garden education is the core of our work at Rainbow City Gardens— the learning curve for how to be a great environmental and community steward is always going up! We’re here to support your journey, and we are right there learning and growing with you 🌞 Feel free to sign up for our newsletter where we share program updates, partnership shoutouts, and gardening tips 🌱 Happy Earth Day today and every day!

We had a wonderful time with kids and parents at Chicago Youth Centers Bloom and Bond family event at Randolph Elementary 🌸 We planted a variety of beautiful pansies thanks to a generous donation by Gethsemane Garden Center!! Before we planted, the kids added Back to the Roots compost to the soil— great quality stuff! 💚(We are gonna need about a pallet of soil and compost in order to get this whole garden planted— we could really use an in-kind donation! 😇)

🌱Cool Weather Edible Gardening 🥬 We gave our first free workshop at this morning! Thank you so much to all the attendees for your participation and great questions— we had a wonderful discussion 🫜Participants got to plant up a raised bed using potting soil and compost— they transplanted collard and chard seedlings, direct seeded nasturtium, radish, and peas, and broadcasted spinach and lettuce 🫛 We’re super excited about this series— next up is Planting Your Tea Garden on April 12! 💚

📣 Exciting announcement! We’re partnering with GGethsemane Garden Centerto offer this free workshop series 🌱🥕🥬 Check out the lineup! First one is next Saturday— hope to see you there 🌻

🧡 For the Black History Month showcase at Randolph elementary, kids learned how to start sweet potato slips and got to take them home 🌱 “Slips” are just sprouts that grow off of sweet potatoes and can be planted in a garden or large pot! Sweet potatoes have deep roots in Black history—they nourished enslaved Africans, as sweet potatoes are a resilient crop and are also easy to grow. Later, George Washington Carver championed sweet potatoes as a powerful crop for soil health, food security, and economic independence for Black farmers. This activity helps kids connect history, science, and culture— while having fun! science

Pollinators and Classroom Connections 🐝 Have we mentioned we also love bees?! 💛 We’ve officially started growing seeds indoors for spring 🌱 Kids at Randolph elementary got to choose which flower seeds they’d like to start, and practiced their writing skills as well! Garden education programs go beyond the garden to support academic curricula in many subjects, including language arts ✍️ Gardening helps kids grow food and flowers, AND builds their vocabulary! We’re excited to plant bee balm in our Learning Garden, which helps attract valuable pollinators so our garden can thrive 🌸