Chicago is uniting gardeners by planting a common seed across the city and will be linked together in a season-long celebration of urban greening. They've selected three candidates to choose from and the winning seed will be from a plant that was once commonly found in the prairies around here, but is now rare in the wild outside of prairie restoration projects and cultivated gardens. I voted for the purple coneflower.
Last year One Seed Chicago distributed 10,000 Blue Lake Pole green bean seeds and helped Chicagoans rediscover growing their own food in a recession.
Mr. Brown Thumb is working on this worthy project which is sponsored by NeighborSpace, a nonprofit land trust dedicated to preserving and sustaining community managed open spaces in Chicago and I thank him for bringing it to our attention. This is indeed a fantastic way to provide thousands of people the opportunity to grow fruits, vegetables and flowers, to restore habitats, and create unique gathering places in their own neighborhoods.
What a terrific idea, Carolyn! I could get behind something like this too, though I'd have to figure out the logistics; probably have to do it in Halifax as there aren't many garden bloggers in my province, near as I can see (I know of maybe half a dozen) and blogs are such a great way to spread the world. You've given me something to think about, that's for sure. Happy New Year, my friend!
ReplyDeleteHi Carolyn,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link to my blog but an you make it a link to http://www.OneSeedChicago.com instead of a link to me?
BTW, so which of the seeds are you voting for?
Hey MBT,
ReplyDeleteI can put the link if you wish but I have a permanent one to OneseedChicago on my sidebar.
You must've missed the first paragraph, last sentence in which I wrote that I voted for the coneflower :-)
Happy New Year, Carolygail,
ReplyDeleteThat's cool! In my city, we have an organization called, "CROPS". I can't remember what all the letters stand for, but the first one is, "community" and it is a non-profit that organizes community gardening. They are also involved with buy fresh and local groups and some of the gardeners have booths at various farmer's markets and sell to restaurants.
Carolyn,
ReplyDeleteUp to you really, just figure for the people who will come across the post and won't check the sidebar may only visit my blog and not the One Seed Chicago website.
Which reminds me I better get off my duff and go blog about it at the MrBrownThumb blog too.
Thanks for blogging about it.
Jodi,
This isn't a blogging project-it is an urban greening project by Chicago's land trust for community gardeners. They choose three plants to be voted on, the winning plant gets sent out for free. You could start something like this in your own community too and get people involved in gardening.
I love this idea Carolyn - love how it encourages and promotes gardening, and love how it unites gardeners throughout the city and 'burbs in having a common plant in our gardens. I think coneflowers will win. I may vote for nodding onion though, since coneflowers seem to be in every garden, and nodding onions are a little less common. I do love bee balm too. . . I love them all!
ReplyDelete