The public gardens quietly feeding their cities

We already told you about the campus gardens quietly feeding college pantries. Some of America's biggest botanic gardens run the same playbook, bigger: growing food, training people, feeding neighbors.

Chicago runs ten farms and delivers a quarter million pounds

Chicago Botanic Garden's Windy City Harvest runs 10 urban farms across Chicago.

More than 240,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables go to people facing food insecurity each year, plus a VeggieRx program handing out free produce boxes to more than 3,300 people, per Chicago Botanic Garden.

It also trains more than 70 people a year in paid farm work, with about 80 percent landing food-system jobs, and has helped launch more than 30 small farm businesses since 2013, per the same source.

Two decades of adding farm sites built a food, health, and jobs operation most nonprofits never reach.

The Bronx has been doing this since 1988

New York Botanical Garden runs its own version through Bronx Green-Up, since 1988.

It now supports more than 200 Bronx gardens and urban farms, reaching more than 9,500 people a year with horticulture education, per New York Botanical Garden.

Over nearly four decades that help has added up to more than 300 gardens established, and the program now coordinates a Bronx Community Farm Hub network of more than 18 community gardens and farms working alongside NYBG's Edible Academy, per New York Botanical Garden.

Denver has its own version too

Denver Botanic Gardens does not have to look at Chicago or the Bronx to see this pattern. It runs Chatfield Farms, a 700-acre nature preserve and working farm where the CSA program grows seven acres of vegetables, flowers, and fruit for subscribers and community donations, per Denver Botanic Gardens.

Launched in 2010, it was the first CSA ever run by a botanic garden. It now serves more than 325 subscriber families weekly for 20 to 23 weeks a year, with several tons of vegetables donated since the program began. More on that CSA's full story is here.

A community-supported agriculture box is the same idea whether the farm belongs to a family or a botanic garden.

Chatfield Farms is not the only food program DBG runs: in partnership with the Denver Housing Authority, the Gardens grow more than 30 varieties of produce on a half acre in the Sun Valley and Mariposa neighborhoods, distributed through 30 free farm stands a season, per Denver Botanic Gardens.

DBG has also grown produce for SAME Cafe, the "so all may eat" pay-what-you-can restaurant, for more than ten years, per the same source. Denver's own institution has been doing the quiet, unglamorous work all along.

Find yours

Three cities, three institutions, the same shape: grow food, train people, share the surplus with neighbors who need it. You almost certainly have one near you.

The American Public Gardens Association champions nearly 600 public gardens across North America, per American Public Gardens Association, and runs a Garden Finder to find yours.

There is always a way in: volunteer, donate surplus, or buy a membership, often the simplest way to keep a program like these running.

A membership card is a small thing. The farm stand it helps fund is not.

Bottom line

• Chicago Botanic Garden's Windy City Harvest delivers more than 240,000 pounds of food a year across 10 urban farms, per Chicago Botanic Garden.
• Bronx Green-Up has built more than 300 gardens since 1988 and now supports a network of over 200, per New York Botanical Garden.
• Denver Botanic Gardens' Chatfield Farms CSA serves more than 325 families a week and was the first CSA a botanic garden ever ran.
• Find your local garden's version through the American Public Gardens Association's Garden Finder.

Your zone

Zone 3-4: [VERIFY: no zone 3-4 specific source opened this pass; none of Chicago, the Bronx, or Denver fall in this band]

Zone 5-6: Chicago Botanic Garden sits in roughly this band alongside Denver Botanic Gardens, itself zone 5b-6a. Windy City Harvest's 10-farm network and Chatfield Farms' CSA both run on a spring-through-fall growing and donation calendar, per Chicago Botanic Garden and Denver Botanic Gardens.

Zone 7-8: New York Botanical Garden's Bronx location sits in roughly this warmer, longer-season band. Bronx Green-Up's 200-plus garden and urban farm network runs workshops and harvests across a longer growing window than the zone 5-6 gardens, per New York Botanical Garden.

Zone 9-10: [VERIFY: no zone 9-10 specific source opened this pass]

Zone 11+: [VERIFY: no zone 11+ specific source opened this pass]

Sources

1. Chicago Botanic Garden, Windy City Harvest
2. Chicago Botanic Garden, Windy City Harvest About Us
3. New York Botanical Garden, Bronx Green-Up
4. New York Botanical Garden, About Bronx Green-Up
5. Denver Botanic Gardens, Food Programs
6. Denver Botanic Gardens, Chatfield Farms CSA Program
7. American Public Gardens Association
8. American Public Gardens Association, Garden Finder Photo: Padre Plaza garden E137 jeh by Jim.henderson, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APadre_Plaza_garden_E137_jeh.jpg Photo: Kaicycle Urban Farm Wellington 03 by L Maule, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kaicycle_Urban_Farm_Wellington_03.jpg Photo: The Epicentre, Meanwood Urban Farm, Leeds - geograph.org.uk - 5161198 by Humphrey Bolton, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Epicentre,_Meanwood_Urban_Farm,_Leeds_-_geograph.org.uk_-_5161198.jpg Photo: Part of Meanwood Valley Urban Farm, Leeds - geograph.org.uk - 5161204 by Humphrey Bolton, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Part_of_Meanwood_Valley_Urban_Farm,_Leeds_-_geograph.org.uk_-_5161204.jpg