Garden Details
Garden Details
Our vision is one of right-relationship with the Earth and each other today for the sake of life tomorrow.
Our mission is to provide a space where all life is reverenced and the whole community of life can flourish, and to help others discover or create a space of reverence in their own lives in order to bring healing and justice to the Earth.
We accomplish this through our quality of presence as we tend organic gardens, care for farm animals and honeybees, provide education and experiences in the natural world, practice sustainable living, and nurture an atmosphere of prayer.
Garden Practices
Garden Practices
We try to garden as sustainably as possible. We have a total of approximately 44 garden plots ranging from 4'x16' to 25'x100'. Twenty-four of those are our individual community garden plots in which families are able to grow and take home their own vegetables. Practices vary depending on what is being grown and the size of the bed. We mulch using shredded leaves and grass clippings, compost, practice crop rotation, and cover crop in order to promote soil health.
In our perennial gardens, we try to focus on native plants, but we also have a variety of non-natives for pollinators and beauty.
Butterfly weed, common milkweed, blue asters, New England asters, goldenrod, slender-leaf goldentop, mountain mint, peonies, black-eyed Susans, and echinacea are some examples.
In our vegetable, grain and fruit gardens, we grow tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, broccoli, cabbage, cucumbers, Long Island cheese pumpkin, luffa gourds, wheat, potatoes, sweet potatoes, string beans, lettuce, carrots, beets, chard, kale, edamame, garlic, onions, snap peas, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and a variety of herbs.
We have a wonderful community of volunteers who helps with all garden tasks, cares for our chickens, goats and rabbits, and offers programs to the community.
Everything that is grown is shared with the community on our Sharing Table where the model is "take what you need, give what you can."
We offer a variety of programs for children of all ages to have hands-on meaningful experiences in the natural world. We also co-host a nature pre-k class in which children in the local UPK spend 2 hours outdoors in the natural world each day. Youth groups, girl and boy scout troops, homeschool groups, and students on field trips are regular visitors.
We offer times of prayer, especially during the solstice and equinox times, as well as contemplative prayer, a spirituality of breadmaking retreat, journaling in the gardens, hearth: meaningful conversations around the fire, labyrinth walks, and more.
We have a variety of educational workshops including soap making, beekeeping, breadmaking, herbal teas, holiday wreath making, gardening Q&A, etc.
During the wintertime, we make pizza in our brick oven using the wheat that we grow in order to keep the community connected during the colder weather.
Additional Information
Additional Information
Our latest struggle has been with the Mexican bean beetle, and each year there are different pests who find their way to our garden beds.
We would love to expand our programing for children and youth and to bring a nature educator to our team.
We share about 10,000 servings of vegetables and 5,000 eggs from our chickens with the community each season.
The largest success story, however, is the community that comes together in this holy space. As a 12 year old boy (who is now an adult who continues to participate) once put it when asked why we do what we do, "The Garden is a place where people can come to connect with each other, with God and the Earth."
