Collective Gardening

In a collective garden, a group of people work the land as a community, growing crops together and sharing the harvest.

What is “collective gardening”? 

Collective gardens are communal growing spaces where gardeners share the work of planting, tending and harvesting in one large plot together, differentiated from the traditional individually-tended community garden “plots.” Collective gardeners may be growing for themselves and their families or volunteering their time to share the food with neighbors or local food access support organizations, educational efforts or other endeavors. These growing communities have their own unique set of opportunities, challenges, and creative solutions. Collective gardening is a practice in resilience: empowering people to grow food for themselves and neighbors by helping to overcome the barriers to gardening like lack of land, start-up resources, tools, seeds, skill, confidence, or ample discretionary time.

“Collective gardening seems like the way we were meant to garden. Why do something individually when there’s so much to be gained from community knowledge, from the give and take of having many people to rely on, when you can share abundance and advice and inspiration more widely!” – Seedsong Collective Garden Member, 2022

“It is wonderful to bring home food that was alive in the ground just hours earlier, and without a collective garden, I would not have much opportunity to do that. I cannot keep a personal garden going, and I have no space for one where I live. For me, the collective garden offers all of the benefits of gardening but with no stress around the work to be done.” – Seedsong Collective Garden Member, 2022

What inspires VGN to promote collective gardening? 

When the covid pandemic lockdown began in spring of 2020, many food security initiatives came about to improve people’s access to nourishing food. We witnessed a boom in the home gardening world with many people newly interested in learning how to grow their own food. VGN was approached by Skinny Pancake to expand the shared gardening model we were exploring at the Tommy Thompson Community Garden in Burlington. Within a year, a handful of other collective gardens, then called “Grow Teams“, joined the movement. The Grow Team managed by VGN became know as the Co-op Victory Garden and was renamed Seedsong Collective Garden in 2022.

At Seedsong, VGN oversees aspects of garden management such as sourcing materials, guiding the planting calendar, coordinating work days, and supporting members so that they can focus on growing nourishing food for themselves and their community. Garden mentors host weekly work shifts, monthly potlucks, and monthly Saturday workdays, weaving everyone together in such a way that the community aspect of Seedsong is just as nourishing as the harvests. We have arrived at this model of collective community gardening after many years experimentation with different management styles. Today Seedsong is a vibrant community of dedicated garden members, an exemplary demonstration garden where we host numerous workshops, and has truly brought to life our vision of what collective gardening can become.

In 2024, VGN piloted two new collective gardens in the Burlington area thanks to support from the Conservation Legacy Fund to transition individually-tended community garden plots into a shared gardening model. At the Starr Farm Community Garden in the New North End we welcomed 13 garden members who revived an abandoned plot where new garden beds were designed around existing perennials. Read more about the Starr Farm Collective Garden here. The second pilot site was the Family Room Collective Garden where programming centered around growing culturally meaningful crops for the New American and migrant families who participate in Family Room activities.

As we look ahead to 2025, VGN is envisioning a “hub and spoke” model for expanding collective gardening. We ambition to manage multiple garden sites, engage with 50+ gardeners, grow thousands of pounds of fresh produce, weave together a community of practice around collective gardening… and we can only to do that in community with fellow gardeners and movement organizers. Stay tuned to hear more about our plans in 2025 – if you’d like to be first on the list when we announce garden membership, please contact carolina(at)vtgardens.org