2025 Vedgewater Growing Season Highlights and Community Gardening Impact

After an abundant 2025 growing season, the 184 Vedgewater plots, native plants, fruit trees, and garden beehive have been put to bed for the winter. With 173 plots tended by community members in 2025, including 39 new gardeners, we provided our community with the opportunity to learn about vegetable gardening, growing their own organic food, native pollinator plants, and sustaining our vibrant Edgewater community.

Interest in the garden grew substantially in 2025, with 302 households on our waitlist and 425 members on our volunteer mailing list. The inspiring levels of community support led us to smash records for volunteer hours with 1099 hours logged, a 205% increase from 2024! In fact, we had so many volunteers that we had the opportunity to get ahead of our proposed projects and create even more ambitious goals for 2026. Vedgewater remains an integral part of the foundation for community engagement in Edgewater.

Better management led to bumper crops in our donation plots, enabling us to donate over 500 pounds of organic produce to the Edgewater Mutual Aid Network distribution (14 out of 21 harvests shown below!). These plots helped nourish our neighbors in need, providing them with accessible, healthy, and organic local produce.

After Loyola provided us with the new space to the north of the garden in 2024, we made significant progress fostering habitat for local wildlife with native landscaping. We planted 20 native fruit trees and shrubs, 50+ native perennial plants, and 500+ sunflowers, which attracted and fed hundreds of local birds. We were grateful for the help of an excellent group of Loyola first-years on Loyola University Chicago Community Service and Action's Saturday of Service on Saturday, August 23rd. Together with these enthusiastic young volunteers, we created four new native planting areas in a newly established space on the north side of the garden. In total, we planted over 40 native plants representing 10 different native species to help support local wildlife. Loyola has been an integral partner of the garden, and we look forward to many years of collaboration ahead. 

With the increased cultivation of native garden space unlike any other time in the garden’s history, we have seen Vedgewater grow into a thriving ecosystem that not only sustainably supports us and the birds, but has noticeably strengthened our native pollinator and insect populations as well. This year we have seen, for the first time, native dragonflies, alongside increased populations of native bees, butterflies, and wasps. In a time where insects are facing significant population declines as climate change threatens ecosystems at alarming rates, we are committed to putting forth local solutions to global problems by cultivating and maintaining our local native habitats. 

Edgewater is a dense, culturally-diverse community. We are grateful, proud, and devoted to reflecting those qualities in our natural ecosystem by enhancing biodiversity and resilience in our role as environmental stewards. 

Detailed Breakdown of Progress and Events at Vedgewater in 2025

Community support

• Harvested and donated over 500lbs of organic produce for Edgewater Mutual Aid Network distribution 

• Harvested all remaining produce during Garden Gleaning day on November 16th, and donated all produce to Care For Real for distribution 

• Offered 7 gardeners free or reduced plot fees to ensure the garden remains accessible to folks of diverse economic situations 

• Provided 4 plots at no cost to mutual aid organizations to grow food for their communities: 2 plots for Edgewater Mutual Aid Network and 2 plots to the Chinese Mutual Aid Association 

  
  

Ecosystem enrichment 

• Planted the northeast and southeast garden borders with over 500 sunflower plants to beautify the neighborhood and support native birds such as goldfinches, cardinals, doves, and more

• Diverted 45 cubic yards of arborist chips from the landfill using them to mulch garden beds, reduce weeds in pathways, assist the new trees, and improve the soil in the north area

  • Promoted sustainability and long-term soil carbon capture by spreading mulch and shielding the soil

• Received a consultation from Vivant Gardening Services, establishing a native habitat landscaping plan for the north area and southeast corner

• Planted 14 native fruit trees and 6 native fruiting shrubs in the north area to support wildlife

• Planted and nurtured native plant populations, including Butterfly Weed, Cream Wild Indigo, Plantain-leaved Pussytoes, Purple Lovegrass, Pale Purple Coneflower, Stiff and Tall Goldenrods, Prairie Dropseed, Little Bluestem, Late Boneset, Common Milkweed, Illinois Native Purple Aster, Wild Bergamot, Bee Balm, Elderflower, and more

• Continued native plant cultivation in the north area, creating a noticeable increase in wildlife population of native species such as Monarch Butterflies, Black Saddlebags Dragonflies, Black Swallowtail Butterflies, American Goldfinches, Brownbelted Bumble Bees, Bicolored Striped Sweat Bees, and more

  
  

Infrastructure improvements

• Improved composting protocols to recycle the majority of plant waste on site in 2025

• Rebuilt 37 garden beds with more height and new wood

• Installed a new 70 square ft Suncast shed to better store equipment

• Installed 116ft of ADA Mobi-mat, allowing better access to gardeners with accessibility needs

• Installed a durable stainless steel conduit trellis to increase the donation plot productivity

• Added 4 new metal raised beds for growing flowers in the north area

• Set up a council circle ring of a 100+ year old Cottonwood tree that a developer cut down

  
  

Collaborations with Loyola University

• Loyola University Chicago Community Service and Action's Saturday of Service on Saturday, August 23rd

  • Lead group of Loyola University students in planting 10+ species and 40 native plants in the north area to support native wildlife

    
    

Fostering Community 

•  Volunteers and gardeners logged 1099 hrs of volunteer hours 

  • Represents a 205% increase from 2024

• Hosted a mint mocktail hangout to enliven our community and use up the overabundance of mint in the garden

• Fiona Ortiz led an educational teaching to over 20 community members on how to identify butterflies, attract them to the garden, promote their populations, and use iNaturalist to monitor them

• 15 gardeners came together for our harvest potluck, sharing dishes with produce and herbs they harvested in the garden

• We had great engagement at our monthly volunteering days, getting more than 15 volunteers helping out at each event of the 2025 garden season

  
  

Beehive in the garden

• Generated 20.25 lbs of honey in collaboration with DePaul University professor and entomologist William Gilliland through his class on beekeeping