DO YOU…

…have a green thumb you’d like to get dirty?

…not have a clue how to grow veggies but are eager to learn?

…love getting to know other foodies who share your values?

…want to be able to boast to friends and foes alike that you grew the food on your plate?

If you answered “Yes” to any one of those questions, you’re a prime candidate to become a member of GrowUptown – Peterson Garden Project’s (PGP) newest pop-up Victory Garden in the Uptown neighborhood.

Here are 5 Great Reasons to unleash your Inner Gardener! 

1.  You’ll be supporting a superb nonprofit. Founded by LaManda Joy, Owner #749, in 2010, Peterson Garden Project has grown from its first pop-up garden in a vacant lot on Chicago’s North Side into a fully grown nonprofit featuring all this (and much more):

- Eight currently active community gardens throughout Chicago
- Gardening lessons and resources for first-time growers
- Community cooking school
- Special events galore
- Community-minded philanthropy

2.  You can be eating your home-grown organic food in no time! Get your bed planted with early Spring crops and you can be munching your very own radishes and bringing home-grown salads to Summer Solstice parties.

3.  You’ll make new friends who share your commitment to good, honest, sustainable food. Just as countless (1,037 and growing!) Owners of Chicago Market – a Community Co-op have learned, becoming a member of a food community brings like-minded people you may not have met otherwise into your orbit.

4.  You can stock your home freezer with the fruits (well, veggies) of your labor! My husband and I have been PGP gardeners since the very first pop-up Victory Garden at the corner of Peterson and Campbell in 2010. When that lot was sold, we migrated to the garden at the former Stars motel site. For the last few years we’ve been happily ensconced in Bed #13 at “Land on Lincoln” where Peter grows enough basil each year to turn into dozens of containers of bespoke pesto which we eat and share with family and friends!

5.  You’ll become an integral part of Chicago’s foodshed. Our Co-op’s vision is to create “a better food community – local, sustainable, connected.” By supporting our many nonprofit partners (like PGP) – and becoming an Owner yourself -- together we can create a local and more sustainable food system.

Give it a GROW!