Tomato Talk With Joh...

Dr. John Taylor is well-known to the PGP communities at Global Gardens and Hello!Howard (and almost 20 gardens and urban farms throughout Chicago), where he ran a research project in 2014 to study tomato cultivars in urban growing conditions. John is interested in more than the best tomato to...

Advice for New Garde...

As part of her fieldwork among PGP gardeners, Sarah R. Taylor, our research partner from Northwestern University, asked participants with at least 1-2 years’ experience to offer advice to new gardeners just starting out. Here are the top 5 responses, summed up in easy-to-digest bites: 1. Have...

The “Long Arm&...

As gardeners, we all take a degree of pleasure and pride in our plots and their produce.  We are attuned to the forces of nature at work in our bits of urban habitat.  We talk about our gardens and what we see; we bend the ear of our friends, our family, and random folk.  Our enthusiasm for...

Toward Windy City To...

Even if you started gardening only this year, you’ve probably already discovered that urban gardeners and farmers face a number of unique challenges, from uncertain water supplies to soil of widely varying quality. These challenges could be addressed through plant selection and...

Gardening for Stress...

Have you ever wondered whether gardening can help with everyday stress? Stress is a known risk factor for preventable chronic disease and plagues many of us living in a noisy, hectic urban environment.  During the 2013 gardening season, our research partner from Northwestern University, Sarah...

What You Can Compost...

Traditionally compostables come from your kitchen like leftovers and vegetable ends, rinds and husks, but you can also compost a great deal directly from your garden plot. From the plot you can compost plant roots, stalks, stems, vines and leaves. You can definitely compost pulled weeds and...