Barbara Kirchner is the unofficial “garden mom” for The Peterson Garden Project, a plot-to-plate resource organization dedicated to teaching everyone to grow their own food. The Project installs and manages community edible gardens, offers garden education, and builds community, one tomato at a time. The original Peterson Garden was a revived WW2 Victory Garden on an original 1942 site, and is the largest edible community garden in Chicago. Kirchner lives across the alley from the original site, and quickly became the indispensable source of iced tea, bandaids, emergency rest room, electrical outlets. Her greatest assets (aside from cold tea on a hot day) are a constant smile, supportive conversation and free hugs. But more than that, she was the one who was always there to greet new gardeners, to accept deliveries, to arrange repairs, and countless other needs for the award-winning garden. Rather than wait for someone to tell her what to do, she steps up and offers what she has to give, whenever someone needs it.
In the words of the president of the American Community Gardening Association, a community garden is 10 percent garden and 90 percent community. Kirchner is 90 percent of the community part. She gave the nascent garden community continuity and form, with grace and generosity. She is generous with her time, her friendship, her knowledge and her worldly goods, and became the glue that helped give the community form and strength. In 2012, the organization had to close the original garden, and she elected to come along and be the garden mom for one of the new sites, despite losing the convenience of having a garden across the alley. She immediately stepped in as garden mom, inevitably showing up with a bag of treats and band aids, an inspiring story, and a willingness to step in to help in any tasks, from hauling rocks to pulling weeds, to manning a drill, providing an example to follow, a model for new volunteers and an inspiration for everyone.