UIC Nutrition Teaching Garden

Happy Earth Day 🌎 🫶🏿💚🩵🤍

Earth Day is a reminder that our food system starts in the soil and depends on how well we care for it. At UIC, students learn about this cycle in the UIC Nutrtion Teaching Garden, then bring that food into the lab to wash, prep, cook, and serve. What’s left goes back to the compost, and the cycle continues.

This is how we teach nourishment: not only what’s on the plate, but everything it takes to get it there.

We’re ready to start another season with our hands in the dirt and our minds on the full food cycle from our soil to our dinner plate.

Want to join us this season? Send Chef Renea an email to get on the garden listserv: [email protected] 🌱

Two packages of docile Italian honey bees joined the garden yesterday in partnership with the Chicago Honey Co-op. 🐝 🐝 🐝

These pollinators play an important pollinating role in the HN food’s lab hyper-local food system, supporting the growth of fruits, vegetables, and flowers we will use in upcoming summer and fall classes 🍇 👩🏼‍🍳 👨🏽‍🍳🥘

We are wishing them a healthy season, safe flights, and strong honey production ahead. We have plenty of flowers to forage from: pansie, tulip, grape hyacinth, and alfalfa are shown in this photo collection. Stop by the garden to check these out today! 💐

Spring has officially sprung, and it’s time to get planting!

Earlier this week, a few of our student garden volunteers and Chef Renea gathered at the UIC greenhouse on the east side of campus to start seeds for over 600 plants. With the help of Chef Emily & UIC agricultural forewoman , these seedlings will be carefully nurtured over the coming weeks before being transplanted into the UIC Nutrition Teaching Garden after the frost-free date in early May.

This is where the growing season truly begins: these small seeds have big potential, and a whole lot of hands working together bring the garden to life.

Interested in getting involved this growing season? Email Chef Renea to be added to the garden volunteer listserv and join us in the garden: [email protected]

A core part of our work at the UIC Nutrition Teaching Garden is teaching sustainability in food systems and foodservice. This study abroad experience extended that learning beyond the classroom and into a real-world setting in St. Vincent.

We hiked the Rose Hall trail through agroforestry systems where crops support one another, like planting cowpeas to help restore nitrogen in the soil and support the growth of other crops. We saw how farmers use practices like mulching and companion planting to protect and sustain the soil and its bugs and microorganisms over time.

Much of this work relied on manual labor rather than machinery, which gave us a better understanding of the time, coordination, and care required to produce food. Several students reflected on how this experience changed the way they think about food waste and the value of the work behind what we eat.

We also began to see and understand how access shapes food systems. In some communities, there is no easy alternative if food is not grown or shared locally. This shifted our perspective on food production, responsibility, and community.

The hiking experience with our guide, Selly, helped us connect what we study in our outdoor classroom at UIC to the realities of food systems, sustainability, and global communities. We are so grateful for the wisdom Selly shared with us 💚💛💙

✌🏼️ 🇻🇨