Rainbow City Gardens

📣 The latest edition of the Rainbow City Sun just dropped! It includes announcements and highlights about volunteer opportunities with Chicago Youth Centers, upcoming workshops with Gethsemane Garden Center, current youth and senior programs, emerging partnerships, and seasonal gardening tips 🌿 We shouted out Star Farm Chicago, Sag Moraine Native Plant Cmty, and Liberation Education Collective ⭐️ Sign up for the newsletter— link in bio!

We are so honored and excited to be partnering with Sag Moraine Native Plant Cmty who is dedicated to promoting and restoring native plants in our local northeast IL landscapes 🌿 Last week they joined us at Moraine Valley Explorers summer camp to give a wonderful presentation about the importance of native plants, and then we got to plant some in our kids garden! The kids planted monarda, wild strawberry, prairie blazing star, and more 🤩 This is such a lovely opportunity for these kids to see their their plants grow and develop over the years… and for natives and edible garden spaces to support each other symbiotically! 💚

📣 Calling volunteers! We’re organizing a volunteer day next Tues Aug 11 with Chicago Youth Centers in North Lawndale— this space is in need of community support! We’d love to see you there— if you cant make it and youre interested to help, let us know so we can add you to our volunteer list, or fill out the voluteer form in bio 🌱 Hope to see you there!

Before the heatwave set in we were able to line the edge of a school garden bed with gorgeous multicolor flower plugs like marigolds, pansies and coleus thanks to a generous donation of annuals from Gethsemane Garden Center! 🌼 We cant wait to see how these bloom and thrive throughout the rest of the growing season 💗 After planting flowers around the edge of the bed, we filled the inside with veggie and herb starts 🌱 An easy and practical garden design for a standard rectangular garden bed 💚 Chicago Youth Centers

Last week we got to plant some beautiful large basil and tomato plants during Chicago Youth Centers summer sessions in the Orville Bright School garden! Tomatoes and basil make great companions too 🍅 So grateful for a generous donation of herb and veggie starts from Gethsemane Garden Center 🌱 Our summer programs have begun and we’re avoiding planting in the heat this week, but definitely making sure our gardens stay hydrated! 💧 Once this heat subsides, it’s not too late to pop some larger transplants into your garden— plenty of starter plants at garden stores are still looking for a home 🏡

The Green Teacher Gathering is this Wednesday and we’d love to see you there! Brought to you by Chicago Wilderness Alliance and located at Academy for Global Citizenship — we’ll be at the resource fair and Margo will be giving a talk in the morning session about garden education advocacy: “Evidence from the Field: Making the Case for Garden Education”
🌿 Calling all environmental educators, sustainability practitioners, and anyone curious about conservation education: registration is now open for the Green Teacher Gathering 2026. This is more than a conference— it’s a space to reconnect and get inspired.
This year’s theme, “Guided by Nature: Reconnect, Restore, Revolutionize—advancing nature-centered teaching for a sustainable future,” invites you to reimagine what learning can look like, no matter who your learners are.
With hands-on workshops and community-building sessions, you’ll leave empowered and equipped to bring environmental education to life.
📅 Wednesday, June 24, 2026, 8:30am-4pm CST
📍 Academy for Global Citizenship, Chicago
📝 Learn more and register: see link below!

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!