Community Gardens Program

Growing Food, Growing Community

Access to fresh, healthy food should not depend on your zip code. Yet in many of the neighborhoods TerraFuture serves, the nearest grocery store with fresh produce is more than two miles away. Corner stores stock processed options. Vacant lots collect litter. Our Community Gardens Program transforms that landscape, literally, by turning abandoned and underutilized spaces into thriving, resident-managed gardens that produce food, restore soil, and rebuild neighborhood connections.

Since 2020, TerraFuture has established 35 active community gardens across four districts, producing over 12,000 pounds of fresh produce annually and engaging more than 1,400 resident gardeners. These gardens are not decorative. They are working landscapes that address food insecurity, improve soil health, support biodiversity, and create spaces where neighbors come together around a shared purpose.

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Our Garden Network

Each TerraFuture garden is managed by a resident Garden Council, a group of local volunteers who make decisions about planting schedules, plot allocation, communal harvesting, and garden events. TerraFuture provides startup funding, soil testing, irrigation infrastructure, tool libraries, and ongoing horticultural support, but governance belongs to the community.

Our 35 gardens range from compact 12-plot spaces tucked between row houses to our flagship Meridian Commons garden, which spans a full city block and includes 60 individual plots, a communal orchard, a composting station, and a youth education area. Collectively, the garden network covers 4.2 acres of previously vacant or degraded land.

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Educational Programming

Gardens are classrooms. Every TerraFuture garden offers seasonal workshops on organic growing techniques, seed saving, soil health, water conservation, and integrated pest management. In 2025, our garden education team delivered 140 workshops attended by 2,800 participants.

We also partner with local schools to host field trips and curriculum-aligned garden lessons, connecting students with hands-on science, ecology, and nutrition education. Our School Garden Partnership currently serves 14 elementary and middle schools, maintaining dedicated growing spaces on school grounds and integrating garden activities into science and health curricula.

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Food Security

Every pound of produce grown in a TerraFuture garden is a pound that did not travel 1,500 miles to reach a plate. Our gardens prioritize culturally relevant crops chosen by resident gardeners, from collard greens and tomatoes to bitter melon, tomatillos, and Thai basil. In neighborhoods where fresh produce is scarce and expensive, this matters.

In 2025, TerraFuture gardens donated 3,200 pounds of surplus produce to four neighborhood food pantries. Our Harvest Share program allows gardeners to designate a portion of their plots for communal distribution, ensuring that even residents without garden plots benefit from locally grown food.

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Composting and Soil Restoration

Healthy gardens start with healthy soil. TerraFuture operates composting stations at 28 of our 35 garden sites, diverting an estimated 18 tons of organic waste from landfills annually and converting it into nutrient-rich compost for garden beds. Our soil restoration protocols include regular testing, cover cropping, and remediation guidance for sites with legacy contamination.

We also run a neighborhood composting pickup program in two districts, collecting kitchen scraps from 340 participating households and processing them at our community composting hubs. The program reduces household waste, enriches garden soil, and builds awareness of the connection between consumption and land health.

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Biodiversity Corridors

Gardens do more than grow food. They create habitat. TerraFuture's Biodiversity Corridor initiative connects garden sites with pollinator-friendly plantings, native species hedgerows, and rain garden installations that provide stepping-stone habitat for birds, bees, butterflies, and other urban wildlife.

Our monitoring data, collected in partnership with university researchers, shows a 34% increase in pollinator species diversity at garden sites compared to nearby vacant lots. Twelve gardens now include dedicated pollinator meadow sections, and our corridor mapping project is identifying optimal locations for new habitat connections across the district network.

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Impact at a Glance

• 35 active community gardens across four districts
• 12,000+ lbs of fresh produce grown annually
• 1,400 resident gardeners actively participating
• 4.2 acres of vacant land transformed
• 18 tons of organic waste composted annually
• 14 school partnerships with on-site garden education
• 34% increase in pollinator diversity at garden sites

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Join the Garden Network

Whether you want to tend a plot, volunteer as a garden steward, or help start a new garden in your neighborhood, we welcome your hands in the soil. Contact our Community Gardens team at gardens@terrafuture.org or visit any of our 35 garden sites during open hours.