About Us
From Garden to Network: Cultivating Community and Sustainability
Our Mission
To foster human dignity, promote the common good, and advance environmental stewardship through sustainable gardens in Catholic communities that nourish both body and spirit.
Our Vision
To inspire a vibrant community connected by gardens in Catholic settings, cultivating spiritual nourishment, community well-being, food justice, and care for creation, where individuals share resources and support one another.
Our Values
Human Dignity
We honor the inherent worth and potential of every person, striving to create an environment where all can thrive.
Hospitality
We warmly welcome everyone, cultivating spaces where all individuals feel valued, respected, and part of our community.
Community Engagement
We encourage active participation, knowledge-sharing, and collaboration, empowering individuals to strengthen their communities together.
Spirituality
We recognize gardens as sacred spaces for prayer, contemplation, and spiritual nourishment, inspired by our Catholic faith and open to all.
Learning and Growth
We nurture opportunities for hands-on learning and discovery in the garden, encouraging growth in knowledge, skills, and connection with the natural world.
Food Justice
We advocate for equitable access to healthy, nourishing food, working to address disparities so that all, especially marginalized communities, have the resources they need to flourish.
Care for Creation
As stewards of God’s creation, we are committed to sustainable gardening practices that nurture the earth and safeguard it for future generations.
Our Story
In spring 2022, Catholic Garden Network (CGN) founder Julene Jarnot began volunteering as coordinator of the vegetable garden at her Catholic parish in Northern Virginia. She led a major expansion and renovation of the space, which now provides fresh produce for the parish food pantry and includes a bed of pollinator-friendly and native plants, all framed by welcoming spiritual elements, including a fence inspired by Abraham’s tent, a symbol of hospitality. Having grown up in rural Minnesota with family gardens, Julene understood from an early age how gardens bring people together.
Through this experience, Julene saw how a parish garden can become a place of nourishment, beauty, and encounter, and a concrete way to live the Works of Mercy: feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, comforting the afflicted, and inviting prayer. She also recognized the unique challenges and opportunities of gardening in Catholic settings. This inspired a vision for a network that could connect and support communities engaged in similar work, grounded in shared values of prayerful presence, food justice, care for creation, hospitality, and learning.
Drawing from Catholic Social Teaching, Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’, and the Gospel call of Matthew 25, “whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me,” Julene officially launched the Catholic Garden Network in late 2024. Today, CGN brings together Catholic parishes, schools, universities, and ministries that feed neighbors, cultivate prayer and encounter, restore habitat with pollinator-friendly and native plants, engage learners of all ages, and strengthen community life.