Volunteering at Chicago Lights Urban Farm

Hannah and I taking a break from weeding at Chicago Lights Urban Farm!

On Saturday I volunteered at Chicago Lights Urban Farm (link). It's located at the corner of Hudson and Chicago, not too far from the Brown line stop. I live in the north west part of the city so it was a pretty convenient location for me and didn't take too long to get to. When I got there, I filled out some paper work and Stephanie, one of the staff members, gave us a tour of the farm. She told us the history not only about the farm but about the community around the farm as well. It was very interesting how the history of the community was very much a part of the history of the urban farm. 

The farm is divided into four main parts--at least that's how I was dividing them. The first part was the community plots where residents of the immediate neighborhood were given a plot of land and could grow whatever they wanted. The second part consisted of two hoop houses and the green house. I like to call this area indoor growing area. The third part was a larger area with lots of beds. This was the area specifically used for growing produce for sale. The fourth area consisted of a few small beds where children participating in the summer camp program could plant as well.

Weeding.

After a general introduction to the site, we were put to work. Hannah and I were both on site that Saturday which was nice to be working next to a familiar place. We were set to work on weeding the outer perimeter of the site. It is not easy pulling out weeds that have grown in between cracks in the side walk.

Chicago Lights Urban Farm has big worms everywhere!

I think the thing I like the most about Chicago Lights Urban Farm is how close the farm is with the community and vice versa. Almost every person who came into urban farm knew Stephanie and the other staff. The kids involved with the summer programs hang around the farm even outside of camp time. The neighborhood residents that were working on the farm were also friendly towards Hannah and I. They showed a general interest in us and were excited to hear that we were going to be continually involved in the farm for the coming weeks. 

Hopefully the heat won't pick up.

Growing Power: Iron St. Farm

So for yesterday's (Tuesday 6/11/13) class session, our IPRO visited Growing Power's Iron Street Farm. Here's the link to Iron St. Farm's website: CLICK ME. The farm wasn't too far away from campus and it wasn't all that complicated to get there at all. We simply followed 35th St westward until we arrived Iron St. I'm writing this a day after we went visited, so most of the things I experienced there I remember pretty well. But the feeling of intrigue and excitement has dissipated a bit. Don't get me wrong, Iron St. Farm was impressive but I wish I could have written this last night so this post would be a better reflection of my feelings. I'm sure if I were to go back again I would be just as amazed as I was yesterday.

This is the mural on the side of the building! Painted by youth!

Great things comes in little packages and Iron St. Farm is just that. Granted, the lot they are located on is a pretty sizable one, they are doing GREAT and AWESOME things and not even using up the entire space yet. I even capitalized the words to emphasize my point. Comparable to the size of the lot, there is a lot of powerful things going on at Iron St. which amazed me. We were given a tour of the place by two of the staff there.

We learned about compost and the process used to make compost. They had these two structures where the compost would sit and as well as a large hoop house with a large stack of compost inside. It was amazing to see the number of plants growing on site as well. I also just want to mention now that a few days ago when I was reading the required articles for week 1, there were some mention of chickens being raised on urban farms. After reading that, I started to do some research on chickens because... I want one. Anyways, I thought that was really funny when our tour guides showed us the chicken coop they were in the process of building. I want a chicken really bad now.

How could you say no to this?

Other livestock on the site were goats! They were miniature goats and they were so cute! I wanted to take one home with me. They baa'd and everything. I gathered myself quickly before I started my goat-napping career.

The goats on the farm!

We then moved inside to learn about how mushrooms were being grown on site. I was very intrigued at how this was being done. I wish I could explain it here so you could understand why I was so intriguied; but I'm not entirely sure I'd be 100% correct in explaining it. All you need to know is that it was really cool and that mushrooms take a really long time to grow.

These mushrooms were really cool looking.

They also had some fish! It was dark, I didn't really see them but still, animals = cool. I should find a new word to describe things other than the word cool. My favorite part of the whole place was the worms and worm farm so to speak. They're used for vermicomposting! I just Googled that to make sure it was correct--and yes Google is now a verb. Also, new fun and crazy word learned today: VERMICULTURE. This is the use of worms to create what I like to call super-fertilizer. That's probably not the technical name for it, but this fertilizer was pretty awesome. I immediately wanted to have one running on UFarmIIT. Erika explained the process of vermicomposting and afterwards we got to sieve some dirt. It was a lot more fun than it sounds.

Afterwards, our IPRO team sat down and discuss some business regarding the organization and goals for the team. I was glad we did even though we did run a few minutes over class time and it was super hot inside the building. Good things to come!