Greenhouse

Join us for a Harvest Celebration featuring a Fire Cider Make & Take!
Saturday, October 18 in the Greenhouse at Landry Park

• Everyone is welcome!  Stop by for a quick hello or linger for all activities.
• 3-5pm – Apple cider and donuts, seed packet donations, walk around the greenhouse to admire our winter greens production, chat with VGN staff to learn more about our organization.
• 3:15pm – Fire Cider Make & Take – first we will harvest ginger & turmeric harvest, then we will guide a hands-on tutorial to make fire cider. See below for full details on the Fire Cider Make & Take activity and RSVP to reserve your jar.
• 4:00pm – Garlic Planting Workshop – learn all about bed prep, garlic varieties, seeding depth, and maintenance tips for an abundant harvest of scapes and bulbs next summer!

Fire Cider Make & Take

• We kindly ask for a sliding scale donation of $0-20 to help us cover the cost of materials.
• Your RSVP will help us prepare and have sufficient materials on hand. We appreciate RSVPs and donations ahead of time. You can also show up on the day of – we’ll accommodate everyone until our supplies run out.
• Please bring a cutting board and knife, as well as a grater or microplane if you have one – we’ll have some utensils on hand too.
• VGN will provide jars, apple cider vinegar, citrus, and a collection of vegetables and herbs from our greenhouse and gardens.

We’ve been making fire cider for many years and felt inspired by Fruition Seeds’ invitation to make community batches of this immune-boosting elixir. We hope you will join us for this local celebration of our first year managing the Greenhouse at Landry Park. Save the date, bring your friends and neighbors, and RSVP to reserve your jar!

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2025 at a Glance

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Background

This project materializes a new partnership between Vermont Garden Network and City of Winooski. We extend much gratitude to the grant support from Vermont Foodbank and to the contractors at Vine Ripe for making this dream a reality.

Here is a little background on the greenhouse structure: Julie from Red Wagon Plants, in partnership with New Farms for New Americans, were the first to erect the greenhouse structure at the O’Brien Center in Winooski almost a decade ago. A few years later, NFNA passed along the greenhouse management to the City of Winooski, and for several years it functioned as a community greenhouse where residents rented table space for starting their seeds. Consecutive years of vandalism to the greenhouse structure and property theft forced the City of Winooski to close down the greenhouse.

In spring of 2024 stars aligned and the City of Winooski reached out to VGN after hearing that we were searching for a location to build a greenhouse. We met with VineRipe and defined what it would take, logistically and financially, to relocate and reskin the greenhouse. A heroic group of volunteers and staff cleaned up the site at the O’Brien Center in preparation for the big move.

In early June, a tarp was laid down to mark the footprint of the new greenhouse at the Landry Park Community Gardens, adjacent to the Myers Memorial Pool. We could not have imagined a more ideal location! By mid August, the greenhouse had been reassembled and skinned with new plastic. The City of Winooski is working hard to connect electricity to power the vents and to install propane for the heater.

Greenhouse Grand Opening

The greenhouse grand opening will be in March 2025. We’ll be seed starting 6,000+ plants, including many culturally meaningful crops, for our garden programming in central Vermont. We’ll also be demonstrating season extension (overwintering greens, perhaps growing ginger and turmeric, seed saving from biennials, so many options!), offering a series of community workshops and highlighting climate resiliency practices for garden-scale growers.

We opened our doors and welcomed over 150 community members to the Greenhouse Grand Opening at Landry Park on March 22, 2025! The day was a beautiful celebration of community, with local organizations, City of Winooski employees, public officials, and neighbors all coming together to mark this exciting new chapter. From the moment the doors opened, From the moment the doors opened, attendees had the opportunity to choose from thousands of donated seed packets, each one destined for a local gardener ready to grow their own crops. Within just a few hours, attendees helped seed 9 trays of onions, shallots, and scallions—about 800 plants—which will go on to feed our community for months to come. From toddlers to experienced gardeners, everyone played a part in sowing these crops for the benefit of all.

Throughout the day, there was laughter, learning, and plenty of cheddar and chive biscuits to go around. We’re deeply grateful to our sponsors and partners— Gardener’s Supply Company, The Skinny Pancake, City of Winooski Recreation & Parks, and Vermont Foodbank—for their support in making this event possible. The grand opening is just the beginning of an exciting journey, and we look forward to growing together with our community in the months and years ahead.

   

Event Photography: Annalisa Madonia

Growing thousands of plants for our garden community will only be possible with support from our community. Various contractors, electricians, volunteers, consultants, and many farmer friends have advised this project. We invite YOU to help us GROW by contributing to our Annual Fund.

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