Green Community Connections' 2013 Green Living and Learning Tour is just a week away, on Septmber 28th. With all the information about the Oak Park/River Forest event available in our posts about all the great tour sites, the schedule, the map, the one-hour guided tour descriptions and the drop-in opportunities descriptions, you are now well armed with everything you need to plan your day and to REGISTER for your selected tour stops!
We invite all participants and their families to join us at Oak Park's Field Park (northwest corner @ Berkshire St. & Woodbine Ave.) at 5 p.m., immediately following the final green tours. We will eat, play, and enjoy our sustainable community connections.
Sugar Beet Co-op members are providing a Harvest Picnic free for all Green Living & Learning Tour participants. Picture a huge green salad, homemade bread and spreads, Italian panzanella salad, quinoa, kale, and other scrumptious freshly made - and in many cases, locally grown - food waiting for you after you finish up an afternoon of great tours.
We'll reflect on the tours we experienced during the day, recognize hosts, sponsors and volunteers, and we'll even give away some green door prizes! Please join us.
Photos from the 2012 Closing Celebration
"When we purchased the house in 1999, Mary and I didn't originally set out to make the house so efficient and relatively green," said Mark, adding, "We've slowly learned, and sought out, ways to restore the house which respect its history and significance but also incorporate 21st century efficiency technology."
On September 28th, starting at noon, visit Cheney Mansion in Oak Park and explore the potager (kitchen garden) there. Our host, Charlie Ruedebusch, will lead a guided tour of the Cheney garden from 1 to 2 p.m, describing how the garden has evolved over the past ten years and sharing the joys and benefits (and pop a few myths) of choosing native plantings in the home landscape. Native plants attract beneficial insects to help pollinate the vegetable garden. Bring a few small paper bags and a pen – you’ll get to collect seeds of the native plants you most desire in your garden.
After Charlie’s tour, at 2:30 p.m. there will be an opportunity to join a group bicycle ride across Oak Park searching out food sources for bees, butterflies, and birds. We will visit gardens with native plantings that serve these creatures well. Bees and butterflies sniff out the fragrance from the nectar of native plants because it’s a fragrance they’ve smelled for thousands of years. Birds chomp greedily on the seeds of these same plants. On the bike trip we’ll admire the diversity of these hardy natives and how well they manage in our soil. Parks, schools and churches offer great opportunities to use green space to feed the creatures that work so hard pollinating the food humans eat. The bicycle tour will make stops at Scoville Park, Jackson Boulevard parkway, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Elmwood Street, Beye School and more.
The 
First and foremost, Lisa (pictured at left in her garden with her family) decided to use the “tiny bit of useless backyard behind [her] six-flat” to grow some of her own food. It took some planning, as it was nothing more than a muddy patch of land where, she reports, “nothing would grow and was used mostly as a dog run”. When the dog (and the neighbor) moved out, Lisa seized her chance, digging drainage ditches and spreading mulch over the top with other neighbors in the building. "We then built four raised beds and filled them with soil," she said. "At the same time, I had to figure out what I could even grow in my backyard, since my readings suggested that any garden with less than six hours of direct sunlight would not produce anything. As I observed the sunlight patterns, we were lucky if we got three-to-four hours of direct light a day. I was undaunted, however, and decided to try a variety of greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans and even some berries. As with any experiment, not all of the plants have thrived, but many have done so well, that I now pronounce my garden a success.”
