Closing the Loop
Supporting local food systems.
With our Garden Partners program, members have the option to share their earned compost with local farms and gardens, who create equitable access to healthy food in our communities.
Find a garden
The Asheville Buncombe Community Garden Network is coordinated by Asheville based nonprofit, Bountiful Cities, connecting almost 40 gardens. Bountiful Cities is able to coordinate shared workdays, a tool library, seed library, volunteer recruitment, potlucks, and shared resources - like COMPOST! Bountiful Cities is also able to provide free workshops to community gardeners on all kinds of related topics like seed starting, and mushroom log inoculation. The goal of the network is to strengthen neighborhood-powered food initiatives through collaboration.
Our Buncombe County School Garden Partners currently include Evergreen Community Charter School, The Growing Wild Forest School, and Issac Dickson Elementary School. When you share your earned compost with Buncombe County Schools, these participating schools can request compost delivery to be used in their school gardens to grow healthy food and educate students about the importance of healthy soil!
Eliada’s Campus Farm program provides food and educational opportunities for its 400 students and residents 365 days a year. The farm currently consists of three growing facilities: a geodesic Grow Dome, a hoop house, and a learning garden. Between the three facilities, their farm program is equipped to grow year-round. Produce from the farm goes directly to Eliada’s on-campus kitchen where it is used to create nutritional, fresh meals for the students served on campus. A portion of the Learning Garden is also dedicated to a therapeutic tea garden where they grow herbs youths help bag and drink as a self-soothing ritual. Additional produce grown outside of the kitchen's needs is supplied to food boxes through our Healthy Opportunities Pilot program, giving food boxes to community members in need.
They use a geodesic dome for year-round growing using hydroponics, soil beds, and aquaponics. Their 3-season hoop house is off-grid and utilizes 70 ft long raised beds for things like tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce, and other salad items. Their Learning Garden is 1/4 acre and utilizes a deep mulch compost system and no-till practices to, without the use of chemicals, grow larger quantities of things like beans, potatoes, onions, squash, melons, salad greens, and tea herbs. This spring they're putting in a berry patch with strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries. The Campus farm program is fully grant and donor funded and is one of the several programs that non-profit Eliada Homes operates on its campus as part of their child and youth services. Our Farm manager, in addition to growing all this food, also teaches hands-on agricultural education classes to their K-12 students on a weekly basis. Students are the ones helping to grow this food right alongside our Farm Manager.
At Lighthouse, their mission is to provide safe and supportive homes for individuals seeking both stable housing and a place to heal. They are dedicated to creating a nurturing environment that promotes healing and personal growth, helping individuals rebuild their lives, foster lasting recovery, and reintegrate into their communities with renewed joy, peace, and meaning.
The Rhoades Property Garden serves as a space for UNCA students and faculty and Asheville community members to learn and participate in sustainable agriculture practices.The intergenerational activities that are practiced in the garden are intended to make connections between the diverse communities and neighborhoods of Asheville, educational institutions, and various sectors of the food system. The Rhoades Property garden provides a fun way to learn about sustainability and organic gardening and serves as an opportunity to gain and share knowledge, which in turn will create a community response to local food security.
The Sand Hill Community Garden is located at the Buncombe County Sports Park in West Asheville. They donate produce to MANNA, a local free farmers market, and a free community meal at a local church. Please help them keep this neighborhood garden growing strong by sharing your earned compost.
The Shiloh community is rooted in African American settlements dating back to the 19th century. Agriculture serves as a tradition in the area, one they are working to revive through their community garden and other such projects. Youth involvement at the Shiloh Community Garden includes not only the experience of growing produce organically, but lessons in food preparation, healthy eating, permaculture, sustainability, entrepreneurship, literacy, leadership and self-governance.
Southside Community Garden is located in the Southside Community, a historic African-American neighborhood and supported by volunteers and community members dedicated to growing food and community involvement. The project has welcomed a place for both neighbors and residents of the Southside Community, plus volunteers and community groups from outside the neighborhood to connect to agriculture and healthy eating in a food desert, meaning a place that lacks access to healthy food and groceries. The food grown in donated to the Southside kitchen which serves donation based meals and is open to the public.
The Grow Dudas HQ urban farm is strategically located in a food desert and serves as a local growing facility and educational site for the community to gather and learn how to grow their own food. We just installed 10 fruit trees in our orchard area and currently have one 4x8 raised garden bed growing strawberries. They are expanding this year and have plans to grow more fruits, vegetables, herbs, and cut flowers.
HealthMPowers, a non-profit in Atlanta, is on a mission to empower healthy habits and change environments where children live, learn and play. Over the past several years, they've partnered with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta, engaging members in experiential learning through cooking classes and on-site gardening. They've implemented gardens at over a dozen clubs as a tool to better understand the importance of eating local, fresh produce. They have grown herbs, potatoes, tomatoes, green beans, strawberries, and more! Their partnership provides impactful programming to help members develop the skills to improve their social, emotional, and physical health so that they can achieve the Great Futures they deserve.
The Jolly Avenue Garden is a vibrant community gathering space that fosters a collective experience of beauty, belonging, and friendship with the land and with one another. Our mission is to enrich the Clarkston community by offering growing spaces where refugee gardeners can grow their own food to feed their families and friends and facilitating educational opportunities for folks of all ages through agriculture programming, mentorship, employment, and STEAM curriculum initiatives.
Love is Love Farm at Gaia Gardens grows healthy food and seeks to sustain the success of farmers through collaboration. They work to achieve this mission through employment and mentorship of young farmers, their farmer collaborative CSA model, and servant leadership to good food and farm organizations.
Lumenous Healing is an urban farmlette in South East Atlanta that started on a vacant lot by two homeschooling mamas. These women are called to nourish their families, themselves, and their community. Lumenous Healing grows medicinal herbs, flowers, and heirloom veggies without pesticides or chemical fertilizers all on a tight budget. It's a happy place for children, pets, plants, and pollinators to grow and play. Sharing compost keeps them flourishing!
Medlock Park Community Garden's mission is to provide a welcoming outdoor community space where the focus is on people, sustainable organic gardening, learning, teaching, and healthy food choices.
Nurture ATL is a new urban community garden project that seeks to address critical issues of food insecurity, environmental sustainability, and community education in the vibrant city of Atlanta. Through the utilization of innovative urban farming techniques and community engagement strategies, they aim to establish a model urban farm that serves as a catalyst for positive change in the local community.
Congregation Ohr HaTorah is a modern orthodox synagogue located in Toco Hills in Atlanta. The OHT Garden, in memory of Maya Hazel Cohen, is a space for congregants and students to learn about the overlap between Judaism and environmental stewardship, and appreciation for the beauty in nature. The entire Ohr HaTorah team has created a lavish garden and enriching learning environment for their students. The synagouge offers after-school and Shabbat programming in their GrowTorah garden. Ohr HaTorah is the only synagogue Anafim partner of Grow Torah.
Our Giving Garden is a 501c3 nonprofit community farm and education space committed to interrupting poverty in the metro-Atlanta community through fresh produce donation, food access programs, and nature-based educational resources for children and adults. Located on three (3) acres in Mableton, Georgia their farm serves community members through partnerships with local food pantries and supports children and youth by providing a safe community space to learn and grow. Founded in 2016 by a group of friends as a community garden, their farm has grown to offer regular education and camp programming, and an educational animal program hosts a forest preschool onsite and as a WWOOF site for farm internships. As of 2022, they have donated over 8,000 pounds of fresh produce, and over 9,000 eggs, and they are just getting started!
Outdoor Fresh Farm is an educational/demonstration farm that teaches sustainable, eco-friendly methods of agriculture. Since their farm is located in a food desert, they provide the elders and sickly in the community with fresh produce straight from the garden. They also educate about different animal husbandry practices that work in harmony with nature as well. They grow a lot of seasonal crops year round and have different methods of regenerative farming, vertical gardening, companion planting, and the square foot gardening method just to name a few.
Civic Garden Center works with neighborhood residents to create community gardens, providing training and technical support for growing fruits and vegetables to create sustainable projects for the entire Greater Cincinnati region. They try to grow using only organic practices and materials. Each community garden grows various fruit and vegetables ranging from eggplant to corn and everything in between.
Sidestreams Foundation, Inc. is a 501(c)3 nonprofit with the mission of building gardens and creating locally grown fresh food projects. Sidestreams works throughout Cincinnati to not only increase fresh food access, but also empower others with tools and knowledge of how to grow their own food.
Taft Garden is a diverse group of passionate Walnut Hills residents growing healthy food, restoring urban soil, beautifying green spaces, and building community. They believe everyone deserves convenient access to fresh and affordable local produce.
Alliance Medical Ministry exists to provide affordable healthcare to working, uninsured adults in Wake County. Our community garden, located at 101 Donald Ross Drive, Raleigh, was created in 2009 to supplement our holistic approach to health care by providing our patients with fresh and organic produce to improve their diet and overall health. Yearly we donate 2,000 pounds of nutritious produce to our patients, and growing!
Gardeners at the Asbury Community Garden enjoy a long growing season in full sun plots, experience community with fellow enthusiasts, and, more importantly, donate at least 50% of their harvest to Inter-Faith Food Shuttle and individuals/families in need. The garden began in 2011 and has continued to thrive. More than fifty people from Asbury Church and the community are involved with the garden and have donated in excess of 7,000 pounds of vegetables to charities every year. The garden is harvested twice weekly by people leasing garden plots. Gardeners take joy in knowing that hungry families are enjoying fresh vegetables.
Blossom Garden Club is a member of the Durham Council of Garden Clubs, Garden Clubs of NC, & The National Garden Club Association. They collaborate with The Trinity Park Foundation in Durham, as well as with Durham Parks & Recreation. The garden is located at The Trinity Park, a neighborhood park supported by City of Durham.
The CREW Community Garden will serve the Church of Reconciliation and Elliot Woods apartments and other interested neighbors. They provide an opportunity to plant, tend, and gather food from a garden, enabling youth and adults to teach and learn gardening skills while building a sense of community with each other. They also aim to foster stewardship of the natural world around us, to learn and experience the benefits of fresh homegrown food, and to share the bounty of God’s gifts from our garden with others free of charge.
Located on Wilson Street in Chapel Hill, NC, Carolina Community Garden serves as a source of fresh sustainably grown produce for UNC-CH's lowest wage workers as well as a learning community for students, staff, and neighbors to develop gardening skills, healthy living, social responsibility, and interdisciplinary pursuits. CCCG is the result of shared efforts of staff, students, faculty and local residents. All of the fruits and vegetables grown are distributed to UNC housekeepers. Nutrient rich compost is a vital part of growing nutritious fruits and veggies; CCCG composts their yard waste, and you can learn more about composting by visiting their garden during work days, but they don't make enough to fulfill all their compost needs! Lets complete the urban food cycle and help support their mission by providing their garden with compost generated from your food scraps.
The Carrboro Community Garden Coalition (CCGC) runs a community garden located in MLK, Jr. Park off of Hillsborough Road in Carrboro, NC. You don't have to be a skilled gardener to join us, we're happy to teach you what we know! Some of our gardeners started out having never grown anything, while others have managed large-scale farms. Through the garden, we hope to increase sustainable urban food production and community involvement in growing local food. We hope to achieve these goals by 1) teaching people how to grow food, 2) locating, securing in trust, and managing land, 3) increasing access to resources, skills, and local knowledge, 4) creating spaces where community members share tools, land, seeds, skills, inspiration, and cultural awareness, and 5) modeling replicable and financially viable programs and practices
We do not use conventional fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides in the garden, relying instead on compost, "good" insects eating "bad" ones, leaf mulch, and manual labor to keep our crops healthy.
Community Garden Washington Terrace is fostering a community garden program that engages residents with educational workshops, provides produce for those experiencing food insecurity, and ultimately installs the residents as stakeholders of the program.
The garden serves an affordable housing complex consisting of 171 family units. Their crop is based on community input and includes collards, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels, strawberries, blueberries, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, eggplant, spinach, kale, okra, and more! They use olla pots to help with watering and have two outside volunteer managers for the garden in addition to resident volunteers. They use zero pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, using only an organic compost tea from a local nursery for nutrient needs.
Dickson Foundation Community Garden provides hands-on opportunities to learn about planting, harvesting, and preparing healthy food. Produce harvested from the garden primarily go to students, staff, and faculty volunteers. Impacting the food security of the campus community guides distribution decisions. Group work times are scheduled in which garden staff lead service activities such as planting, mulching, watering, weeding, and general maintenance.
They do 3 seasons of crops. In the Fall; they plant beets, carrots, lettuces, kale, broccoli, radish, daikon radish, etc. In the Spring; they duplicate many of the Fall crops; In the summer they plant tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, butternut squash, watermelons, cantaloupe, etc
The Disciples’ Community Garden exists to uphold the following B.E.S.T. practices: Build connections between people and families of their faith community and those in the greater community; Empower individuals and families to take an active role in the garden, and their own food supply and welfare; Share the bounty of the garden and fruits of their common labor to the benefit of their community, especially the hungry; Teach each other what they know. Learn together, and engage younger members of the community to foster interest in sustainable gardening.
