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.
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.
Food Well Alliance's mission is to strengthen community farms and gardens to create thriving communities that value local, healthy food. We do this by connecting people, ideas, leadership, and capital. Over the past three years, Food Well Alliance has directly supported 21 farms and roughly 100 community gardens located within Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett. One of the ways in which Food Well Alliance has supported community farms and gardens is by providing them with high quality, locally produced compost.
Fresh Harvest provides a home delivery of local organic produce throughout Greater Atlanta. The Fresh Harvest Garden is a small diversified garden located in Clarkston, GA. The garden’s mission is to demonstrate sustainable growing practices, foster community, and engage local youth through horticultural therapy field trips. The produce is distributed weekly in Fresh Harvest baskets and sold at a subsidized market for Clarkston's refugee community.
Our Fulton County School Garden Partners currently include Atlanta Neighborhood Charter School - Elementary Campus and Atlanta Neighborhood Charter School - Middle Campus, Parkside Elementary Learning Garden, Westside Wondergarden at Westside Atlanta Charter School, and Benteen Elementary School. When you share your earned compost with Fulton 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!
The Garden at Neighborhood Church in association with The Atlanta Ecumenical Urban Farm Network, works together to combat food insecurity by helping Metro Atlanta to Worship Well and Eat Well. They grow year-round, generally things like tomatoes, carrots, various greens, garlic, herbs, and onions. They use all natural methods and grow in raised beds.
Georgia Organics is a statewide nonprofit working to connect organic food from Georgia farms to Georgia families. The organization hosts a demonstration garden at its Atlanta offices where they utilize healthy soil and compost to grow seasonal vegetables and herbs. Harvests support a variety of potlucks, partner meetings and staff lunches throughout the year.
Global Growers Network partners with people from diverse cultures who grow fresh food for their families and for local marketplaces. Together, they build and sustain networks of people, land, resources, and markets in order to create a more equitable food system that is driven by cultural diversity, inclusive economies, and regenerative agriculture practices.
The Good Samaritan Urban Farm is a 1-acre Certified Naturally Grown farm located on the property of The Good Samaritan Health Center in Atlanta's Bankhead neighborhood. The Farm serves to be an innovative healthcare initiative providing locally-grown, fresh produce to patients & community members within The Good Samaritan Health Center. The Farm hosts a daily farm stand to help create access to the patients and community who are on-site for appointments or visiting the campus, who may not otherwise have easy access to affordable, fresh produce.
Seven years ago in SE Atlanta, community members transformed a steep hillside of kudzu and trash into Grant Park Community Garden. Ever since, their members have been growing vegetables for themselves and for others. In support of the Plant a Row for the Hungry Program, half of their cultivated land is reserved for growing organic food to donate to soup kitchens and feeding programs in their community. Last year, they donated 365 pounds of food - a pound a day! They love the personal connection they feel toward each other, their community, the food they grow and the people they donate it to. They cultivate a big assortment of vegetables, blueberry bushes and honey bees. Along with great food, they are about connecting their community with a happy green space and demonstrating the joys of healthy growing practices.
The aim of Greener Roots is to nourish healthy communities by helping to grow innovative local food systems.
Charleston Parks Conservancy's mission is to inspire the people of Charleston to connect with their parks and together create stunning public spaces and a strong community.
Our Charleston School Garden Partners currently include: Daniel Island School and Community Garden and North Charleston Elementary School. When you share your earned compost with Charleston 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!
The College of Charleston Campus Gardens are made possible by the college's Sustainable Agriculture Program to educate the students and the community about growing food in an urban environment, while also growing fresh food for students produced by students. CofC students are welcome to harvest produce anytime and if a student wants to get more involved students are encouraged to volunteer and resources can be provided for students to grow their own food, as well.
Keep North Charleston Beautiful (KNCB) is an award-winning affiliate of Keep America Beautiful. KNCB is a non-profit organization that works to enhance the beauty and image of the City of North Charleston through hands-on beautification efforts, through education, and by supporting community cleanups. KNCB’s ultimate goal is to create a community where people want to live, work, and play. One of KNCB's many activities is to maintain butterfly gardens throughout North Charleston to support the pollinator population, including butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds. These gardens are educational community gardens for everyone to enjoy!
The Green Heart Project builds garden-based experiential learning projects and school garden programs to educate students, connect people, and cultivate community through growing, eating, and celebrating food.
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.
The mission of the GMS Community Garden is to provide an outdoor classroom that is accessible to all of their students regardless of loss of vision, cognitive impairment or physical limitations, a demonstration site that will serve as an example of how to engage all students in the practice of gardening.
Gracious Harvest Community Garden is a "giving" community garden in the heart of downtown Cary, co-sponsored by First United Methodist Church and our downtown neighbors. Gracious Harvest is a place to cultivate the soil, the spirit, God’s bounty, and the community where friends and family join hearts and hands together to feed the body and soul. The "first fruits" of each harvest (10% or more) are set aside for the needy, members working that day get to share the rest.
Healing Transition's mission is to offer innovative peer-based, recovery-oriented services to homeless, uninsured, and underserved individuals with alcoholism and other drug addictions. Their program is specifically designed to rekindle a person’s desire and ability to return to a meaningful and productive life.
The Food Justice Garden Ministry provides fresh, organically grown vegetables to organizations and churches that assist the needy with food, such as Catholic Charities, Parkwood PTA Pantry, Feed My Sheep and End Hunger Durham. Volunteers from the parish and local community plant vegetables and flowers, weed, water, harvest and construct new raised beds for planting. A limited number of beds are available for parish families to grow fresh vegetables for their own tables. Volunteering in the garden, typically on Saturday mornings, is a great way to build community relationships and teach your children how to grow vegetables.
Hope Gardens creates a community space that fosters relationships, educates the community, and addresses barriers to food access through shared efforts in sustainable agriculture. Hope Gardens functions as a bridge between the student community at UNC-Chapel Hill and the larger Chapel Hill community. It is a student-run non-profit that creates a space for students and the community of Chapel Hill to learn about and grow their own food side-by-side. Additionally, all of the produce grown by students through Hope Gardens is donated through UNC's Food Recovery Network chapter, another non-profit student organization that distributes food donations to local shelters and food pantries so that produce gets to people in need.
The Inter-Faith Food Shuttle partners with communities to grow Community Gardens and promote healthy lifestyles. Through innovative initiatives and partnerships, we provide community members with education and tools necessary to improve community health and nutrition. Community members are empowered to take back control of their food choices and lead healthier lives through increased access to fresh produce, nutrition and culinary education, and opportunities for leadership development, community building, and physical activity.
Compost is vital to our efforts; in fact, we require more than 40,000 pounds of it each year. Help us build community health, wealth, and security by sharing your earned compost; every bit counts!
Kidzu Children's Museum Pollinator Garden's native pollinator garden is where growing gardeners can get their hands dirty! Children can explore our raised beds as they plant, tend, and care for our pollinator plots, and buzz about with their fellow pollinators at this exciting outdoor learning exhibit.
Laurel's Garden Design's mission is to create beautiful, functional, and self-sustaining gardens that promote conservation and increase biodiversity in the landscape. They also grow vegetables and fruits for harvest during the Summer and early Fall to give to the low-income community surrounding their area, as well as grow native plants year-round. The garden is certified with the North Carolina Native Plant Society’s Native Plant Garden Certificate and National Wildlife Federation as a Certified Wildlife Habitat, as well as The Butterfly Highway.
