Planning your church refugee garden

Are you interested in beginning your own church refugee garden?  We’ve created these documents to support your endeavor and help address some frequently asked questions.

Church Garden Models contains a listing of the types of refugee gardens that have been established here in the Twin Cities. There are a number of different ways churches can engage in gardens; you may even come up with new ideas of your own!

Church Gardening Goals provides a list of reasons for churches to create gardens for refugees. These reasons are some of the ones cited by those hosting church gardens and refugee gardeners and are helpful in enlisting support of your local church board and membership.

Church Gardens Sample Guidelines is a list of “rules” based on First Evangelical Free Church (Maplewood) Harvest Community Gardens model. Many area churches develop a similar list and provide it to gardeners at the start of the season, usually as a part of gardener orientation. First Evangelical Free Church has many years experience of conducting a community garden on a large scale. In 2014 they had more than 1200 plots!

Matters to Consider is a document that has been compiled through evaluations and discussions with existing church gardens. These are their suggestions to others – things they felt everyone should be aware of before beginning a garden project.

Finding Gardeners is a document with ideas on how to connect refugees to your garden space.

Additional Resources

Gardening, Food & Faith

For those interested in food, faith, and gardening in the Twin Cities, visit the Facebook page created by the Faith-based Edible Gardening Collaborative.

Resources: Successful Metro-Area Church Gardens

First Free Evangelical Church, Maplewood

Crossroads Alliance Church, Brooklyn Park

Resources: Technical Assistance and Networking

University of Minnesota Extension Gardening

Urban Farming (contact Cherry Flowers)

Resources: Websites

Creating a faith-based community garden (Sustainable Traditions)

Food and Faith blog (Presbyterian Hunger program)

 Starting a faith-based community garden (Godspace blog)

Resources: Books

Farming as a spiritual discipline

The art of the commonplace: The agrarian essays of Wendell Berry

Inheriting Paradise: Meditations on Gardening

Amazon.com search:  Food and faith – provides a list of additional titles

Resources: Gardening Materials

Yards To Gardens lets you share or find all things gardening. Whether you have extra space in your yard, extra tools in the garage, extra seeds or seedings, or just looking for a space to garden, Y2G makes it easy to share what you’ve got or find what you’re looking for.