Community Gardens in Chicago's parks offer gardening, education, and food production programs.

Chicago is a leading city for community gardens and local food production, supported by a long history of programs from the Chicago Park District designed to provide education and access to gardens for learning. Currently, over 90 community gardens are spread throughout Chicago's parks, varying greatly in size, style, and function. These gardens range from large pots of flowers to carefully planned landscapes, with many focusing on growing native plants, shrubs, and beautiful annual and perennial flowers. Edible gardens feature a variety of opportunities, including allotment plot gardening, pantry gardening, and children's learning gardens, welcoming people with a range of interests and experience levels. The Community Roots Demonstration Garden at Skinner Park, opened in 2016, serves as a citywide hub for gardening education and programming. It includes a small community garden for neighbors to tend their own allotment plots, as well as demonstration plots for hands-on education, adult and family workshops, and field trip opportunities for youth in the Chicago Park District's Day Camp program. Established in 1999, the Harvest Garden program has been engaging youth in planting, tending, harvesting, and preparing food for over 25 years. Staff encourage participants to become caretakers of their gardens, themselves, and their communities through cultivating the beauty of the park's edible garden and sharing its bounty. Observing the transformation of seed to vegetable taps into the curiosity of children and connects them to their food and to the natural world. This program runs weekly in the summer, primarily during Day Camp programs.