Hipster Supported Ag...

I think of our programs with teens this way—Hipster Supported Agriculture. It’s a play on the concept of Community Supported Agriculture (that’s what all “CSA” stands for—those programs where you get your weekly tomatoes, carrots and inexplicable 12 pounds of celeriac). But it’s also a way to...

Communicate Everythi...

At Peterson Garden Project, we have a “five tricks” approach to volunteers: Communicate, Share, Listen, Assign, and Reward. The most important thing we do for volunteers is to communicate with them. The more pertinent information we share, the better every volunteer’s experience will be....

Cooking Like Your Gr...

When I first started gardening, Nin, my Chinese mother-in-law, brought me seeds. Winter melon. Long, sweet cucumbers, snow peas, black beans. And something she calls “han toi.” Years later I have figured out that han toi is probably something like quinoa. But she planted it for the dark red...

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...

Your Grandma Made Du...

My grandma made dumplings. Everyone’s grandma made dumplings. Based on my grandma’s dumplings (Chinese), I think I would have to speculate that the Chinese invented the concept, because there are dozens of Chinese dumplings—boiled, deep-fried, pan-fried, baked, and steamed, with sweet,...