Today we started Phase 2 of the Green Corridor.
Nobody is going to make a poster out of it. But WE ARE GOING TO CELEBRATE!
Phase 2 is the production farm — the land that’s meant to actually feed people. And before one seed goes in, we have three jobs: run plumbing to the site, remediate the lead in the soil, and lay a barrier between what was here before and what we’re about to grow.
That’s it. That’s the phase. Pipes, dirt, and a barrier.
I want to be honest about how unglamorous this is, because I think the sanitized version of urban agriculture does everybody a disservice. The photos you see of city farms — the raised beds, the kale, the kid holding a tomato — those are the last five percent. The other ninety-five is permits, water access, soil tests, and finding out what the last century left in your ground.
That’s not to say that we won’t be walking around with ridiculous smiles on our faces for the day at least, because something has started.
About the lead
There’s lead in this soil. I’m saying it out loud because I’d rather you hear it from me than wonder about it later.
That is not unusual for land in a neighborhood like ours. It is the ordinary inheritance of a community that was useful to industry and then wasn’t. The land didn’t poison itself. Somebody did that, and then somebody else walked away, and the parcels sat.
Here’s what matters: we are not planting on top of it and hoping for the best.
The order is remediation, then barrier, then food. Not one of those steps is optional and not one of them is happening out of order. The produce that eventually comes off this acre will be grown in soil we corrected, above a barrier we installed, on a site we tested. That is the entire reason Phase 2 exists and the entire reason it costs what it costs.
If you have been buying eggs and vegetables from us, nothing about your food changes today. We’ve been farming this block since 2016 and we don’t hand a neighbor anything we wouldn’t feed our own four kids.
How we got the land
In July 2025, Chicago City Council approved the sale of eleven City-owned parcels near 120th and Union — roughly one acre — to the NeighborSpace land trust, our partner on this project.
The parcels were appraised at approximately $150,000. They sold for one dollar each.
I want to sit with that number for a second, because people hear “one dollar” and think somebody got away with something. Eleven vacant parcels in West Pullman were worth $150,000 on paper and nothing at all in practice. They sat. They collected dumping. They were a line item nobody was going to develop, in a neighborhood nobody was lining up to invest in. The dollar isn’t a discount. It’s an admission of what the market had already decided about this block.
We decided differently. We decided in 2016 and we’ve been deciding every season since.
The full district is a $2.3 million project: an educational farm, a production farm, a Zen garden, and an orchard. Phase 2 is the production farm.
Why we’re filming all of it
We’re documenting this build start to finish and putting it on YouTube and in our newsletter.
Not a highlight reel. The whole thing. The rain delays. The stuff that costs more than the estimate. The days the work stops for a reason nobody anticipated. Because the version of this story where a nonprofit gets an acre and a garden appears is a fairy tale, and fairy tales don’t help the next organization trying to do this in their own neighborhood.
If you want to see what it actually takes to turn eleven neglected parcels into ground that can grow food, watch. And if you’re doing this work somewhere else, take our notes. That’s what they’re for.
Come see it
We’re at 11958 S. Union Ave in West Pullman. The farm market runs Saturday 9 am – 1 pm, and select Wednesday evenings. Tend & Mend, our free monthly land-based healing program, meets the first Saturday of the month, 10am–1pm.
You can volunteer here: Volunteer
You can support the work here: Donate
You can subscribe to these updates here: Newsletter
Day one video: Phase 2 Begins
City of Chicago announcement: Approval
Ten years on this block. Eleven parcels. A dollar each. And today, finally, pipes in the ground.
We’re Sowing and Growing!
