As a trickle of rain turned into a downpour last Saturday morning, workers from the GreenCorps brigade unloaded plants, short hedge shrubs and flowers at a small parcel at the southeast corner of Adams and Hamilton, their yellow slickers allowing them a measure of protection from the intensifying weather.

The rain, in the end, forced the dozen or so neighborhood residents and GreenCorps workers to reschedule their planting until June 10; the shrubs went back in the truck. Notwithstanding Saturday’s weather, the city owned lot at Adams and Hamilton, land once filled with weeds and brush, empty bottles and the occasional syringe, will soon turn into Jellybean Park.

Development projects on the Near West Side are stalled due to sustained setbacks in the local housing market. It’s an economic reality belting many parts of Chicago, one that’s left vacant lots vacant. But residents organized through the Neighbors Development Network are taking a lemons-into-lemonade approach toward the empty land in their neighborhood, using two of the area’s open tracts for new gardens and public spaces.

“It’s much nicer to see something” in the empty parcels, said Amy Knapp, one of the Neighbors Development Network co-chairs, “instead of nothing.”

“We need an urban oasis,” said Meghan Galbreath, a parks volunteer for Neighbors Development Network who lives near the Adams and Hamilton site. “There’s so much here that’s pavement and parking lots.”

More than a year ago, Neighbors Development Network members began surveying the vacant parcels that dot the neighborhood. They discovered the city owned the lot at Adams and Hamilton, and opened up a dialogue with the Department of Community Development about improving it.

Galbreath said the group then submitted applications for assistance to GreenCorps, a city initiative that supports gardening projects, and NeighborSpace, the non-profit land trust that collaborates with community organizations to build out small green spaces across Chicago.

Both organizations committed to the Adams Street project, which has been christened Jellybean Garden. NeighborSpace will purchase the lot from the city and hold title to the land in perpetuity. The land trust has secured up to $40,000 through a city open-space program to pay for water infrastructure and for fencing at the lot.

“They had a really good idea. It was a good lot and a strong community group,” said Ben Helphand, NeighborSpace’s executive director.

While the Adams garden will take its aesthetics from decorative landscapes, the other new garden spearheaded by Neighbors Development Network fits squarely within the city’s budding urban agriculture movement

In the back of an empty lot near Wood and Washington, sandwiched between two new-construction buildings in the Westhaven Park development, are eight, 4-by-8-foot wooden planters filled with trucked-in dirt and studded with tomatoes, peppers, celery, basil and other vegetables and herbs.

The site is reserved for future for-sale units in Westhaven Park, the housing development that’s replacing the Henry Horner Homes. Westhaven developer Brinshore-Michaels gave Neighbors Development Network the go-ahead to use the land and donated $2,000 toward the initiative.

“As long as people are out there and interested in it, we find it a great way to get people to interconnect,” Rich Sciortino, a principal at Brinshore, said of the project. “That’s a big part of what we’re trying to accomplish here.”

While the developer has no immediate plans to build on the parcel — for-sale, market-rate housing is stalled at many housing authority redevelopment areas — Knapp said her group knows that eventually the new units would go up on the property.

The point was take advantage of it while it was empty. The parcel gets a full day’s worth of sun, making it ideal for growing food. Knapp estimated the property could hold up to 40 raised-bed planters.

“It was never planned to be a permanent garden,” Knapp said. “It was just planned to be a good use of space while we have it.”

Westhaven Garden will see an additional three beds, each accessible for those with disabilities, installed later this summer, and Neighbors Development Network is reaching out to area schools, looking for volunteers. A grant from Knapp’s college in Iowa will assist this effort. Third-, fourth- and fifth-graders from nearby Brown Elementary, who are growing seedlings, will have the option to plant it in the garden

Participants will take home shares of the harvest this autumn, and some youths who help may sell the produce at the Sunday farmers’ market in Ellen Gates Starr Park, Knapp said.

In addition to Brinshore’s support, Neighbors Development Network raised $2,000 toward the project.

Rosa Colbert, who lives in the building immediately east of the Westhaven Garden, allowed her grandchildren to pitch in during the inaugural planting day on June 3. She appreciated seeing something go up on the empty land.

“I’d rather see something there than nothing if they’re not going to develop anything else right now,” Colbert said.

Her grandkids were excited in participate in last week’s planting. She warned of at least one natural challenge the project might face, however. Rabbits, Colbert noted, are known to inhabit the area.

Contact: mmaidenberg@chicagojournal.com