Opportunity Knocks participants next month will plant the first cucumbers for the organization’s Knockout Pickles and other produce at the Grove, the northeast corner of the village-owned Altenheim property.
Opportunity Knocks, a nonprofit based in River Forest that teaches new skills and creates community among people of all abilities, asked the village at a January council meeting to use the land to create accessible urban agriculture and farming programming.
At the April 28 council meeting, commissioners unanimously approved the use of a public way for Opportunity Knocks to move into a 75-foot-by-55-foot space on the western part of the Altenheim’s Grove site. The approved public way grants a 180-day permit starting May 15.
Opportunity Knocks President Phil Carmody told the Review the organization is working with the village to draw up a long-term lease for the farm.
“While that process runs its course, the opportunity to utilize this spring, summer and fall growing season was to apply for the use of the public way,” Carmody said. At his January presentation to the village council, Carmody suggested a 50-year land lease with rent of $1 per year.
“That was us making a statement, more than anything, that we’re very serious about this partnership and see it as a long-term, forever home for this part of our organization and community,” Carmody said.
The 180-day permit will cover the growing season, which starts after the last frost of winter. Opportunity Knocks has been growing indoors – where vocational program employees care for the plants and growing systems – and will move small plants to the ground, hopefully by mid-June, once preliminary landscaping efforts are complete.
“Our approach to urban agriculture includes an accessibility component that requires some extra landscape investment,” Carmody said. That includes re-grading the area, framing pathways that are an accessible distance from garden beds, and using a certain type of gravel, since it’s too expensive for all pathways to be paved. Opportunity Knocks is financing landscaping efforts.
Carmody said Opportunity Knocks is currently coordinating with landscapers on their timelines and project estimates. They plan to work around German Fest on June 6 and Groovin’ in the Grove, which starts next month.
“We’re trying to work either in front of or on the other side of those so that we don’t disturb them,” Carmody said of when landscaping efforts will take place. “I think, if it’s done right, what we put there will enhance those,” he added, like a place to sit and enjoy the new garden.
Knockout Enterprises
Much of the produce that Opportunity Knocks grows at its farm will be used for Knockout Enterprises, a business that the nonprofit launched in 2014. The following year, participants started growing cucumbers to later sell as Knockout Pickles at popups and farmers markets.
This year, Knockout Enterprises will be at the Riverside Farmers’ Market, which starts June 4. They will be selling Knockout Pickles and various types of produce after the Grove garden yields it. New market offerings include plants and repurposed planters made from buckets that once held pickles.
Currently based out of the River Forest Community Center, across Madison Street from the Altenheim, Knockout Enterprises’ participants used to grow produce on a small lot on Madison Street in Maywood – 1,085 pounds of it last year alone.
But when AV Chicago bought 50 Madison St. last year, Opportunity Knocks was left without a place to grow the produce for Knockout Pickles or Knockout Catering – food they prepare for Events By Cibula.
Now with a new location for Knockout Enterprises, Opportunity Knocks is looking forward to how to collaborate with locals – something that was ingrained in its original pitch to the village for the farm.
At the April 28 village council meeting, Gene Armstrong, who lives in the Residences at the Grove on Van Buren St., asked the village if the Grove Midrise Condominium Association could be a part of the new garden space.
“Condo owners who have been following the leasing of property at the Grove for a private cucumber garden have asked me to inquire if the village might lease plots south of the Altenheim building to condo owners for their private vegetable gardens and flower gardens,” Armstrong said.
Commissioner Jessica Voogd, during her commissioner’s comment at the council meeting, said she and Village Administrator Rachell Entler have discussed the Grove condo residents planting gardens in conjunction with Opportunity Knocks.
“We know a lot of people at the Grove would like to have a place to potentially grow some things and do some planting nearby. We said that we’d like to see some partnership there with other folks in the community,” Voogd said. She added that, if the Grove Midrise Condominium Association is interested in that, the village can put them in touch with Opportunity Knocks.
Carmody said there’s absolutely room for partnerships throughout the village.
“There’s probably six different ways that could occur,” he said, including with residents at the Grove condos and the Altenheim. “Once dirt fills the beds, then we figured some of those things would evolve and develop. If those conversations take another step forward, we’re ready to talk.”