Supporting community and school gardens in Vermont.
Members of our Seedsong Collective Garden lost their entire garden during the July flood at the Intervale in Burlington. Amidst the sorrow and uncertainty of next steps in the flood recovery process, we received a generous invitation from a former graduate and board member. Casey participated in VGN’s Thriving Gardens Course in 2017 and later […]
The Thriving Gardens Course is a unique garden education program offered by the Vermont Garden Network to teach adults how to grow their own food in a fun, supportive, and cooperative learning environment. The 6-month long course follows the rhythm of the growing season through weekly lessons and hands-on garden work. Learn more about this […]
I’m Sharon Newman, Garden Coordinator for Chittenden County affordable housing, a partnership between VGN and Champlain Housing Trust (CHT). One site I have spent a lot of time at this season is Beacon, permanent housing for homeless residents, located in South Burlington. Back in March, as I did my pre-season check in, I noticed that the winter […]
The Vermont Fruit & Nut Tree Grant focuses on increasing access to fruit and nut trees through plantings and related education at select community garden sites across the state.
Join us for Vermont Garden Network’s first ever Snowshoe Winter Walk! The walk will take place on February 13th from 1-3pm at Catamount Outdoor Family Center and will consist of a family-friendly 2k loop and other fun activities, at the end of which prizes for most funds raised, silliest hat, and best team name will […]
In 2022 we are diving into the unique model of community-based gardening called “collective gardening.” Visit our Collective Gardening page for upcoming opportunities and resources for people organizing these communities. Coming up: Collective Gardening Community of PracticeWinter Online Gathering: Feb 16th This community of practice (COP) is a conversation space for people involved or interested […]
by Liza Greene Hello! My name is Liza Greene and this summer I was the SHECP Garden Education and Food Access Intern for the Vermont Community Garden Network. I first learned about VCGN through a nationwide program that my college partners with called the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty (SHECP). Through collaborating with universities […]
A special raffle – Win a beautiful framed acrylic painting from Vermont artist Michael Strauss! Ethan Allen Homestead is a special place for gardeners and nature-lovers of all walks, and this piece (measuring 21″ X 25″) captures the vibrancy there. Raffle tickets are $20, and all proceeds will support our new Mobile Classroom and Resource […]
Join us throughout August and September as we feature Open Houses at community gardens across the state. These spaces nourish our families and neighbors, and also become outdoor classrooms, artistic displays, collaborative food donation projects and gathering spots to connect people within communities… all with stories and knowledge to share! Open Houses are family friendly, […]
Water is always at the top of a gardener’s list of concerns, but with drought and heat unusual to Vermont’s gardening season the question of how to get enough water to thirsty plants has been particularly salient. Old systems that gardens put up with in milder years are no longer cutting it. Community gardeners have […]
Join us - tomorrow! - to learn about lactofermentation and preserve cabbage for fall.
RSVP to reserve your cabbage!
Link in bio.
Members of our collective garden, Seedsong, are now spending every Tuesday evening at the market garden @shelburnefarms gardening in exchange for veggies, and having a great time doing it ☀️
Read more about this incredible collaboration and testimonies from Seedsongers at the link in our bio
🥬🍆🥦🍅🥒🌽🫑🥕
Sweet, sweet August. The month of abundance. We love you. 💛☀️🙌
For the gardens that made it through the flood and are persevering through the rain, pest, and disease...August is living up to its name! Swipe through for some seriously big smiles and the most colorful veggies grown and tended to by our Thriving Gardens Course students 🍅
Attention all gardeners, you are cordially invited to VGN’s 2nd Annual Garden Celebration @stowecider – Saturday, August 26 from 4:30-7pm !
Join us as we celebrate another season of growing food in Vermont and enjoy live music and family friendly activities.
🌽 Join the cornhole tournament with fun prizes for all ages.
🍅 Make fun veggie block prints and buttons!
🐛 Check out plants and bugs up close under our microscope.
🧺 Bid on a themed gift baskets or locally crafted treasures at the silent auction (all proceeds will support the Veducator Van – our new mobile classroom)
🍏 And taste Stowe Cider’s delicious cider and food from their new kitchen!
The event is free and open to all. See you there : )
Hi all, it has been a little over a month since the devastating July flood. As VT`s garden network, we want to help gardeners across the state recover from the aftermath of this destruction. To do this, we need to hear from you. Do you need more advice/guidance, cover crop seed, access to fresh food, financial support? Please take 5 minutes to answer the survey in our bio, and share it with other gardeners and garden groups you know of. Your responses to this survey will guide our next actions. Thank you.
Our Veducation Van will be at the @the.one.ramble this Saturday ! We`re bringing our button maker to make buttons with photos from old seed catalogs, veggie block prints, and a microscope to check out garden goods up close. Great activities for everyone!
Find us at the ONE Community Center parking lot where the "Round Up" event at 5pm!
Join us for a statewide conversation to share our experiences, to grieve the loss of our gardens collectively, and to learn about the safety of consuming produce and replanting after a flood.
The Q & A session will take place on Zoom. If you are interested in attending the conversation, save the date for Wednesday, July 26 from 12:30-1:30pm.
Registration link is in our bio.
Today we walked through the Seedsong Collective Garden to assess the damage and begin the process of figuring out what to do next. This assessment along with resources from UVM extension and others across the country will help us determine how we move forward. We will keep everyone up to date on our process.
In the meantime, if you are a gardener and your garden has been affected by the flood please refer to our flood resources page (link in our bio) and/or reach out to us with any questions or concerns you may have about how to move forward.
In solidarity 🌱💚🌞
Our beloved collective garden was inundated with flood water from the Winooski river along with our fellow farmers and community gardeners who grow food at the Intervale.
We were able to get out on the water yesterday to see the damage firsthand and, it is truly devastating.
Seedsong collective garden is tended collectively by 20 gardeners, some who`ve taken our Thriving Gardens Course and become mentors and some who are new to growing their own food. Together they`ve planned, planted, tended, harvested, re planted and processed vegetables that have sustained them over the Spring and Summer months. And now, all that work is under contaminated water 😔
We are not 100% sure where to go from here or what is possible moving forward. We did compile helpful resources on what to do with crops after a flood (access at the link in our bio) and continue to water our greenhouse plants of hope. All that we can do now is wait for the water to drain, soil to dry, and for soil tests results to come in. This will help infer what`s possible.
Our hearts ache for our plant, insect, animal, and grower friends but we will move through this! In solidarity 💚
@new_farms_for_new_americans
@btvparks community gardens
@intervalecenter
@intervalecommunityfarm
@pitchforkfarm
@junefarm_
@diggersmirthcollectivefarm
@sugarsnapvt
Today marked the start of a new adventure ! We started our own seeds to supply our programming with a bountiful fall harvest. Thank you @new_farms_for_new_americans for lending us the space in your greenhouse so we can begin this seed starting journey.
This will be a pilot year for our upcoming community greenhouse project; stay tuned for more details. And if you become a member today you will be directly supporting the internal build of the greenhouse! To become a member sign up at the link in the bio 🌱
Become a member and join us for our first (of three) virtual gatherings of the season on July 11 from 5-6:30. In general, these are intended to be casual with a focus on connecting to one another. In this first gathering you will have a chance to ask Charlie all of your most pressing garden questions🌱
Register at the link in our bio.
And in honor of Juneteenth and to the effort of deconstructing the systems of racism this country was built upon...BIPOC members can join for free!
WE`RE HIRING! 📢 ✨Join Audrey (pictured here) and our other Regional Garden Coordinators to deliver workshops, plants, seeds and general guidance to housing site gardens throughout the state!
We are hiring a garden coordinator for Addison County. The position is part-time, seasonal (ASAP-October) , and a lot of fun! Follow the link in our bio to learn more and apply 🌱
We are trialing a few bean varieties at the demonstration farm plot we manage in partnership with @new_farms_for_new_americans
Some of our favorite seed companies are represented here - @seedkeeping @ujamaafarms @highmowingorganicseeds
Two varieties are from the small seed library we started with NFNA farmers. We think Dhan’s seeds are a cowpea-type bean. And the green color of Rukiya’s beans takes our breath away!
Our hope is to demonstrate techniques for managing Mexican bean beetle and leaf hopper infestations, identify seed varieties that NFNA farmers want to grow more of, and demonstrate best practices for seed storage over the winter. Stay tuned for more updates on the beautiful world of growing dry beans seeds!
This is what Year 3 of our partnership with @new_farms_for_new_americans is currently looking like. ➡️ to see a couple more photos!
We are working on the drip irrigation at the demonstration farm plot.
Soon we’ll be transplanting all these lovely culturally meaningful plants generously started and donated by @redwagonplants
And the team of women at the farm! Mon, Maya, Fatuma and Hadija are Farm Leaders this season. They are our community liaisons, interpreters, and hard workin’ farmers. Alisha directs NFNA with joy, empathy and determination to both write grants and fix irrigation lines. And Carolina from @vt.gardens , the behind the scenes photographer who mentors farmers and manages the demo plot.
Hi all 👋 We have an exciting new project on the horizon and need your support to achieve the final steps! With 200 new members we will be able to create a growing & learning space within our new community greenhouse. Help us to meet our goal by becoming a member today!
Follow the link in our bio to learn more and join as an individual, school, and/or business.
We are delighted to begin a new partnership with @huertasvt, thanks to a Farmer Resilience Grant we recently received through @nofavermont.
The Huertas Project is a community-based food security project that enables Latino/a migrant farmworkers and families living on Vermont’s dairies to access culturally familiar and local foods through cultivating kitchen gardens.
VGN will be providing technical support through the growing season, focusing on soil fertility, pest management, season extension, and climate resilient growing practices. We`ll also be providing useful supplies such as soil amendments and row covers, and capturing a handful of videos in Spanish to share this work more broadly among Huertas participants.
Photo credit goes to Naomi, thank you for the lovely capture! In the photo, Carolina from VGN is chatting with Epimenio, a gentleman originally from Chiapas who`s been working on dairy farms in Vermont for over a decade. Epimenio talked about his favorite hot peppers "chile manzano, con las florecitas moradas". Carolina recalled those peppers with purple flowers from her days managing urban agriculture programs in Mexico City. Naomi, Huertas Co-Director, took the sticker label off of a manzano pepper that Epimenio showed us. We are all now on a mission to figure out how to grow manzano peppers locally.
We eagerly await sharing more of our partnership work in the coming months!
Last week we welcomed the 2023 Thriving Gardens Course students to our teaching garden! Together we planted a row of peas to mark the occasion 🫛 (and YES, we always match our nail polish to our compost 💅🌱)
Late April/Early May is a perfect time to plant a second succession of peas (yes, second! the first is right after snow melt, typically late March/early April). Peas are a cool weather crop and prefer to germinate in cool soil temps as low as 45 degrees! We at VGN will soak our peas in water up to 24 hrs ahead of planting to help the seed coat swell ensuring higher germination success. Then we dust the seeds with an inoculant that contains Rhizobium bacteria (found at your local garden supply store). This bacteria exists symbiotically within the pea roots helping them to fix Nitrogen out of the atmosphere.
After these steps, we plant our peas 3-4" apart and intercrop a radish seed for every 6 peas as well as border the peas on both sides with a row of leafy greens like spinach or mesculin mix to enjoy while we wait for the peas to mature.
Enjoyed this tip about peas? Sign up for our newsletter via the link in bio to read our newly featured `garden tip of the month` and to stay in touch about upcoming events and other ways to get involved.
Volunteer with us during our annual Day in the Dirt Event on April 29th...only one week away!
Work may include building garden beds, assembling deer fences, spreading mulch, planting pollinator plants and other spring garden tasks. No special skills required and tools are provided. Get your hands dirty and maybe learn something too - fun for all ages and abilities!
Sign up at the link in our bio 🌞
This has been a gorgeous week to work at Seedsong and prepare for the season ahead!
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Seedsong is a collective market garden where we share access to land and resources, practice intensive growing techniques, and offer a mentorship program. VGN oversees aspects of garden management such as sourcing materials, guiding the planting calendar, coordinating work days, and mentoring members so that they can focus on growing nourishing food for themselves and their community.
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Yesterday we borrowed a tilther from our friends at the @intervalecenter. At our garden production scale we can’t easily justify purchasing a tilther, however, the collective spirit of the Intervale farming community makes tool sharing possible. A tilther is a lightweight bed preparation tool used to incorporate amendments and mix in the top 2 inches of soil. Powered by a drill, it is a breeze to use, just ask Chloe who powered through ⅓ of our garden beds!
After analyzing soil tests and consulting with UVM Extension, we decided to add peanut meal (nitrogen), potassium (K), peat moss (to lower the pH), and Azomite (micronutrients) to our garden beds this year.
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An excellent opportunity to visit Seedsong is coming up in a couple of weeks - we are offering a workshop in the Garden Like a Farmer series (Registration is FREE! thanks to @intervalecenter, @agroecology_uvm, @skinnypancake). Carolina from VGN will be facilitating a class titled “Season Extension: Low Tunnels, Row Cover & Mulches”.
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Registration link in bio!
Looking for a fun volunteer activity for yourself, your family or a group of friends? Join us on April 29th at one of a dozen school and community gardens across Vermont for our annual DAY IN THE DIRT.
🌱Follow the link in our bio to sign up! 🌱
Work may include building garden beds, spreading mulch, planting pollinator plants and other spring garden tasks! No special skills required and tools are provided. Get your hands dirty and maybe learn something too - fun for all ages and abilities!
All fundraising supports participating gardens and VGN’s state-wide grant programs.
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