Berwyn Roots-A Community Garden Movement

Today I got a call from the Berwyn Public Library that our garden cart and what looks to be many of our stolen items were located hidden on their property.

Police were notified and I sent in the photo.

It’s making its way back to our garden via the Park District Staff, and I will head over this afternoon to see what is there and re inventory.

Thank you to everyone who supported us during this time, and for getting the word out which helped us recover our lost items. We want to also thank the community for the several donations we have received this week.

Did a quick pop in to Ebenezer Community Care Center this afternoon to the neighborhood garden to plant out some donated plants, give them their garden kit we purchased with the leftover garden grant from last Fall’s Seed Money Grant and check in the tomatoes. Things are looking pretty good. Early tomatoes are staked, with a second batch of tomatoes planted today from community donations. We harvested a couple beautiful romaine lettuces and planted out some blackberry, raspberry, rosemary and a blue salvia (all donated to Ebenezer). We also planted two New England Asters salvaged from Serenity Park and a few extra basils we grew for our plant sale.

If you want to get involved with Ebenezer, please message us! The garden is located next to the community fridge at 13th and Harvey.

Edited Post:
Thank you for the outpour of support for our garden community. We have received several donations of items today and our replacement list is shrinking! I did also add some w**ding tools to our wish list, while not originally stollen, will reduce the wear on our backs with some proper w**ding equipment.

Amazon wish list here: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/OPZRIN3EQ9ZC?ref_=wl_share

We will take used items, similar to wish list, if you want to shop local, please do, we can delete items off our list to keep it updated. Just message us and we will be grateful!

Original post:
We are sad to say, once we cleaned up the mess, we realized the theft on Tuesday at the Proksa Children’s Garden was fairly extensive and we lost a lot of critical supplies, they even took all our garden gloves and every pair of clippers!

We met with Officer Hernandez today and made a police report, submitted photos and a list of missing items.

Before we look into purchasing replacement items, we are asking the community to help donate some unwanted items you may have from the list below.

We have a lot to replace, and no donation is too small. Please reach out if you have something to share.

Items can be dropped off to my house (message me for address), we can arrange a pick up, or we will even be at the garden from about 12-4pm on Sunday for drop offs.

Storytime in the garden with Berwyn Public Library starts at 11am at the Proksa Park Children’s Garden. We are located in the NE corner of the park, just look for the blue shed!

Big changes at Proksa Children’s Garden! We learned last spring/summer that a new ADA accessibility plan for the City would be impacting our side natives garden at Proksa Park, so through the fall and into this spring, we began the process of rehoming the natives in and around the garden. At Proksa, we used a huge number of plants to create a natural barrier around the children’s garden, which should start blooming this summer.

Because we knew we had a surplus of plants, more than we could ever reuse in our space, last fall and this spring, we hosted “dig your own natives” community events, sharing with anyone who stopped by, making sure we shared as many plants as we could into the neighborhood. Finally we pulled most of the remaining native plants for our plant sale, which found new homes last Saturday!

This plan was a huge endeavor, we had to move hundreds of plants and relocate and find new homes for them, so we want to take a minute to thank both our regular volunteers, and those who came out when we needed you to lend a hand over these several months, we appreciate all your support!

Today the park district took us the final stretch, they helped transplant our last native tree (an American Plum with a huge tap root we couldn’t budge) and razed the remaining w**dy mess. Grass will be added until the plans for the accessibility entrance are finalized.

If you want to check out the progress of rehoming our native garden in person, our black currents are almost ripe, and we should start seeing a sea of yellow blooms surrounding the children’s garden shortly!

The fruit orchard at the children’s garden will start getting new to us natives planted this Friday, salvaged from the pollinator garden at Serenity Park.

If this all sounded interesting, and something you might like to be a part of, we always need extra hands, check out our events calendar or message us for more info!

We had a break in of our shed at the children’s garden yesterday or today, and our beloved garden cart was stolen (not sure what else is gone yet). We rely on this almost daily on work days and it’s a huge loss for us.

If you see it around town, please let us know.

A photo of the cart is the third pic, it’s green, a bit wonky and peeling paint, with pvc pipes attached to the sides.

If we don’t locate it, we will be looking for another if you have anything sitting unused.

Thank you to everyone who came out to our plant sale today, supporting all our work at the community gardens!

Our sale was a great success, and we owe it all to our volunteers who help take care of and nurture our plants, w**d, water and more!

We are taking this Sunday June 7th off for some much needed rest and will look at the weather before planning our next meet up, there is some rough hot weather arriving this week.

For those who took some plants from our damaged free section, thank you for giving them a chance, we were able to save all 80+ plants and find new homes for them. But with the heat wave in forecast now, it may be best to keep them in their pots out of full sun and keep well watered, and plant after Wednesday which is predicted to be 93 degrees!

Veggie & herb starts $2, perennials $5 or 3 for $10, succulents $2, house plants $5-$50, hangers $1 for 10, various garden and household items , and a variety of vintage camera/film equipment $1-$100 stop by Proksa Park Garage Sale 9-3pm Today, Saturday June 6th!

We will have little Basil starts Saturday $2 a cup at the Berwyn Roots Plant Sale! Which is your favorite?

Find us in spot #40 at Proksa Park!