06/18/2026
Summer is in full swing in the UIC Nutrition Teaching Garden! 🌱
So far this season, Chef Renea, Lab Manager Emily, and our Garden Volunteers have been harvesting strawberries, raspberries, snow peas, garlic scapes, spinach, lettuce, radishes, herbs, and more. These fresh, late-spring ingredients will soon become part of the hands-on learning experience for our HN 110 students as they explore connections between food, nutrition, and sustainable food systems this summer in our lab and garden.
HN 110 summer students met for the first time yesterday. Despite a rainy start, we had a productive first lab and are looking forward to getting out into the garden next week! 🍓
Photo credits: Emily DeLunas
06/10/2026
‘Tis the season for juicy strawberries in the UIC Nutrition Teaching Garden …. we’re so grateful to UIC student Vincent McNulty for helping out at garden volunteer day this week. 🍓🍓🍓🤍🍓🍓🍓
04/22/2026
Happy Earth Day 🌎 🫶🏿💚🩵🤍
Earth Day is a reminder that our food system starts in the soil and depends on how well we care for it. At UIC, students learn about this cycle in the UIC Nutrtion Teaching Garden, then bring that food into the lab to wash, prep, cook, and serve. What’s left goes back to the compost, and the cycle continues.
This is how we teach nourishment: not only what’s on the plate, but everything it takes to get it there.
We’re ready to start another season with our hands in the dirt and our minds on the full food cycle from our soil to our dinner plate.
Want to join us this season? Send Chef Renea an email to get on the garden listserv: [email protected] 🌱
04/20/2026
Two packages of docile Italian honey bees joined the garden yesterday in partnership with the Chicago Honey Co-op. 🐝 🐝 🐝
These pollinators play an important pollinating role in the HN food’s lab hyper-local food system, supporting the growth of fruits, vegetables, and flowers we will use in upcoming summer and fall classes 🍇 👩🏼🍳 👨🏽🍳🥘
We are wishing them a healthy season, safe flights, and strong honey production ahead. We have plenty of flowers to forage from: pansie, tulip, grape hyacinth, and alfalfa are shown in this photo collection. Stop by the garden to check these out today! 💐
04/15/2026
Spring has officially sprung, and it’s time to get planting!
Earlier this week, a few of our student garden volunteers and Chef Renea gathered at the UIC greenhouse on the east side of campus to start seeds for over 600 plants. With the help of Chef Emily & UIC agricultural forewoman , these seedlings will be carefully nurtured over the coming weeks before being transplanted into the UIC Nutrition Teaching Garden after the frost-free date in early May.
This is where the growing season truly begins: these small seeds have big potential, and a whole lot of hands working together bring the garden to life.
Interested in getting involved this growing season? Email Chef Renea to be added to the garden volunteer listserv and join us in the garden: [email protected]
