City Orchards is a 501c3 entity that establishes micro-orchards in urban environments. We preserve green spaces to engage, to learn and to promote community. Through the exchange of shared information, City Orchards aims to empower people to grow and care for fruiting trees and shrubs to ensure a healthy harvest and support local economies.
With decades of collected working and shared experiences, City Orchards has created beautiful and productive micro-orchards on urban public lands as a way to bring fresh fruits to community gardens, public schools and churches on the West Side of Chicago. In our practice, we work with community partners who are the custodians of these planted micro-orchards. Learning propagation, pruning, harvesting and preserving techniques allows for increased food access and security within these communities.
We use a plant palette made up of mostly native fruiting trees and shrubs adapted to our region.
Who We Are
Jeanne Calabrese is a sustainable agriculture advocate with a degree in design from the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology. For years, she has cultivated her knowledge of local food systems and growing practices in order to gain a better understanding of how to impact positive change within the food system. This has led her to complete the Stateline Farm Beginnings course, a residency program in fermentation, certification as a master food preserver, and an apprenticeship on a small apple orchard. She along with co-founder Michael Thompson manage several micro-orchards on the westside of Chicago where Pawpaws, Asian pears, plums and other native fruiting trees and shrubs along with vegetables and herbs are grown.
Michael S. Thompson is Farm Manager and Director of the Chicago Honey Co-op. Michael has been beekeeping and teaching beekeeping for decades. He has installed beehives on the rooftop of Chicago’s City Hall, the Chicago Cultural Center and Gallery 37. Horticulture has been a lifelong occupation for Michael, growing organic vegetables and fruits as a child, and later joining Urban Paradise Landscaping Company in Chicago in 1980. As a landscape contractor, he designed and built countless gardens and planted thousands of trees focusing on native species. In 2000 he was hired at the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance as the community gardener and horticulturist. He was asked to build a demonstration garden on the property and design / install a tree and shrub border for the historic glass building outside the Children Garden.
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