The Naperville Community Garden Plots at West Street always have provided a sense of community in addition to beautiful flowers and tasty vegetables. This year, master gardeners from the University of Illinois Extension and the Naperville Community Gardeners are teaming up to cultivate several rows of vegetables to donate to Loaves and Fishes community food pantry.  Their goal is to donate at least 1 ton of food from the garden by the end of the season.

Additionally, they are growing a variety of Illinois native plants as a demonstration garden to help other gardeners grow similar plants at home.

The Naperville Park District provided 4 garden plots for the Plant-a-Row project and the Naperville Community Gardeners donated $500 to the Park District for the native plant demonstration area. The Community Gardeners presented a check to Park District Executive Director Ray McGury on Saturday, May 21.

The master gardeners plan to work at the Garden Plots every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. throughout the season. They will be available to answer questions and to help beginning gardeners at these times and also on the third Saturday of each month, from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. In addition, “Conservation at Home” brochures with information about native plants will be available at the Garden Plots kiosk, courtesy of The Conservation Foundation.
Earlier this spring, the U. of Illinois Extension held 2 beginning gardener workshops, which attracted approximately 50 participants.

“Gardening is an opportunity to get back in touch with nature,” said Park District Director of Recreation Brad Wilson. “We are grateful to the master gardeners in the community for their willingness to help folks who are just getting started, or who need advice with various gardening challenges, so that they can have success and enjoy the fruits of their labor,” he said.