Podcast

Live From City Grange!

April 20, 2019May 17, 2019 Mike Nowak City Grange, environment, gardening, Get Growing Foundation, LaManda Joy, organic gardening, Peggy Malecki, Peterson Garden Project, seed quilt, Shilin Hora, sustainability, The Mike Nowak Show, United We Blossom

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:43:21 — 47.1MB)

(April 21, 2019) Happy Live from City Grange Day! Happy Easter! Happy Passover! Happy Spring! And Happy Just Another Work Day at The Mike Nowak Show Day!

But let’s get back to the first of those events. This morning, Peggy and I once again take our show on the road. This time, we’re at a brand new–and quite possibly unique–garden center on the northwest side of Chicago. It’s called City Grange, a name that hearkens back to the Granger Movement in the second half of the 19th century in America. At that time, the group existed as an educational organization and as a way to fight monopolistic grain transport practices. The National Grange exists to this day.

City Grange is also an homage to the Victory Gardens of World War II. They were created to enhance agricultural production at home. It is estimated that more than 40 percent of all consumed vegetables in the U.S. at that time were grown in those gardens.

City Grange carries the legacy of socially responsible growing into the 21st Century. Their motto is “United We Blossom™.”

They support local organic farmers. They want to be a community role model by creating jobs and hiring and training at-risk youth. They plan to sell environmentally responsible products from small businesses that are American Made whenever possible. And they support local nonprofit gardening and environmental organizations, such as Peterson Garden Project, Get Growing Foundation, SlowFood Chicago, Green City Market, Urban Beekeeping Lab and Chicago Market.

Here are some of their other goals.

To source and grow organic plants
To recycle our garden plastic (and show others how they can, too!)
To conserve water runoff from our roofs and display benches
To working with artists to create one-of-a-kind garden products out of recycled materials
To raising awareness of new products and technologies that save natural resources
To support sustainable gardening by focusing on natives, pollinator friendly and food plants

The founder of this business is LaManda Joy, who has been on this show many times. You might know her as the founder and executive director of the Peterson Garden Project. In putting City Grange together, her plan was based on her father’s words, “Keep It Simple, Sweetheart.” She joins us this morning to talk about the venture.

Other guests from City Grange are

Becky Rico, who is the director of The Get Growing Foundation and United We Blossom™ (UWB) and on the Board of Directors for Peterson Garden Project. She explains what UWB is about.

Our mission is to provide marketable skills and employment opportunity in the retail gardening and horticultural
industry. In addition, training in core general business skills and competencies is included in this initiative.

UWB participants will be employed part-time by City Grange (an independent garden center and horticulture consulting business) during the period of training. This training will take place in 6 month increments, and UWB graduates will enjoy access to permanent employment or industry placement upon successful completion.

UWB will provide training, skill building, on-the-job experience and placement in floral design, container design, food gardening, product creation and horticultural services. You can find more about United We Blossom here.

Joan Murray will be handling annuals and perennials at City Grange. Today she will give us some early spring tips for having a successful gardening season.

I have known Julie Siegel for about 17 years. Back in the day, we tried to change the world of landscaping with a group called the Midwest Ecological Landscaping Alliance (MELA). That group no longer exists, but Julie refers to it in a blog post titled My Garden Path and Why I Love Natives. If you plan to use natives, she has some questions.

What is a native plant? Why should I care about using Natives? How can working with Natives and using organic practices help achieve healthier benefits? How can I start using native plants in my garden or my community? Can I combine Natives with Ornamentals? What financial and time commitments do using Natives involve? Will my growing Natives make any difference to my local and global communities?

We’ll ask her about that, as well as about her work with a group called Sustainable Sharing with Guatemala (SSG). That group is dedicated to sharing best practices to build working models of sustainability across borders and cultures.

Finally, we welcome botanical artist Shilin Hora back to the show. I had forgotten, but she reminded me that she was on the show on Easter last year! Sounds like we have started a tradition. On last year’s show, we talked about her art that is created from gathering seeds, which she calls “Seed Museum works.”

This year, she is working with the students at Emerson Elementary School in suburban Berwyn. In a celebration of Earth Day and Arbor Day the students have gone out to collect seeds in the school yard or a neighboring park. The kids then created “seed drawings” during art class. Finally, those seed drawings were incorporated into a Seed Quilt, which will be planted on school grounds on Saturday, April 27. Pretty darned cool, if you ask me.

Shilin is graciously coming to City Grange to talk about the project, along 9 year-old Viviana Perez and 9 year-old Liam Lynch. They are both 3rd graders at Emerson Elementary and I couldn’t be more honored to have them on the show.