Community Gardens, Urban Farms

Growing To Give plays a pivotal role in improving the productivity and sustainability of community gardens and urban farms. By providing innovative solutions and resources, we help these green city spaces to overcome all too common challenges, such as the labor-intensive nature of gardening and the limited area available for cultivation.

With a focus on sustainability and growing more with less, Growing To Give provides local gardens and urban agricultural sites with the tools and knowledge necessary to grow more food using fewer resources such as water and fertilizer.

Growing To Give addresses the critical issue of maintenance, including the “need to weed”, by introducing cost effective and time saving methods for plant cultivation. This support is vital in ensuring that these community-focused farm and garden initiatives not only thrive as hubs of local food production but also become more self-sustaining and while serving as educational and communal spaces within an urban landscape.

Building & Retrofitting Raised Garden Beds

There are hundreds of thousands of rained garden beds, some old, some new, scatter across the country. Most are in disrepair, altered by the push of root and soil over the years. Turning over soil in these raised beds can be challenging and labor intensive and can only be turned by hand because mechanical rototilling is either impossible or just not practical.

These enclosed soil spaces constantly need weeding and efficiently watering plants is haphazard at best. Plants often crowd one another from attempts to grow more than is feasibly possible in the contained soil space of a box.

Need Help With Your Community Garden?

Raised Bed Crop Circle Gardens

With the help of our sponsors, Growing To Give retrofits existing garden beds with Crop Circle Gardens. The gardens, about 12 inches round and 8-inches deep, Crop Circle Gardens imbed in soil contained by the raised wood box.

An agricultural grade weed prevention material covers the soil leaving only the gardens showing, which are connected to a shared drip-irrigation line. A wood seat borders the box, a removable passthrough allows materials periodically swept from the cover to be removed. A timer regulates the watering of the plants.

Plants are grown only in the Crop Circle Gardens, leaving area around each garden available for the circulation of ambient air, which regulates temperature, and provides room for plant growth, flowering and fruiting.

In a 20 x 5-foot bed having 100 square feet of surface soil, just 15 percent or 15 square feet is used to grow plants leaving 85 percent free to build a plant beneficial below soil ecosystem. Once the box is retrofitted with Crop Circle Gardens, the soil never needs to be turned, and weeding is virtually eliminated.

A raised garden bed retrofitted with “drill-don’t-till” Crop Circle Garden uses 90% less water and 95% less fertilizer to grow plants of all types and varieties. This

Sponsor A Tomato Volcano

Tomatoes are the most favored plant for both community gardens and urban farms, chosen not only for their popularity but also for their profitability. The immense appeal of tomatoes has led to the development of hundreds of varieties, all originally bred from heirloom types that were common over sixty years ago.

There are primarily two types of tomatoes: determinate and indeterminate. Determinate tomatoes reach a fixed, genetically predetermined height, varying from under a foot to just above two feet. These are typically grown in containers.

In contrast, indeterminate tomato plants develop vines whose lengths continue for several feet until halted by the first frost of fall. These longer vines require structural support, often provided by vertical wire tomato trellises.

Unfortunately, growing tomato plants vertically has unexpectedly led to a decline in tomato yield, sometimes cutting production by more than half. If allowed to sprawl naturally on the ground however, akin to cucumber plants, indeterminate tomato plants tend to bloom and fruit more frequently, significantly increasing their yield.

Tomato Volcanoes offer a new approach to growing tomatoes by creating a natural plant support for uninterrupted vining and increased flower and fruit set.

Instead of training tomato plants to grow up vertically up a tomato trellis, a Tomato Volcano creates a parabolic surface for tomato vines to grow over. The surface mimics the undulating ground surface indeterminate tomato plants would grow over if left to grow naturally, on their own.

When it comes to cherry tomatoes, that could mean the difference between harvesting hundreds of tomatoes or thousands.

Need To Grow More Tomatoes?

Sponsor A Crop Circle Market Garden

Urban community gardens and farms, nestled within the cityscape, struggle with the universal challenge of limited space to grow food, a consequence of urbanization and development that has gradually phased out the more traditional tractor pull farm. This scarcity of land for agriculture is particularly noticeable in urban settings, where the available plots are often no larger than the footprint of a standard building lot. Despite this constraint, cities are dotted with hundreds of these small plots, collectively forming significant potential for development of an urban agricultural presence.

Crop Circle Market Gardens have revolutionized small space community farms and urban farms urban farming by enhancing production efficiency. A Crop Circle Market Garden effectively doubles the yield per acre in these compact spaces. This breakthrough is pivotal for urban agriculture, transforming small, often overlooked plots into highly productive areas capable of feeding local communities and turning a viable profit.

The unique design of a Crop Circle Market Garden maximizes plant growth while minimizing often expensive or limited resources like water, fertilizer, land and labor. A ground cover prevents weed growth, curbs ground water evaporation, and builds subterranean ecosystems beneficial for soil health. Crop Circle Gardens arranged in a spiral fastened through the ground cover prevent removal or dislodgement from wind blow. Seeds or transplants grow from the center of each individual garden, which can be quickly removed, fertilized, and re-installed at the beginning of each season. After installation, irrigation and fertilization is automated set by a timer. Crops are rotated by growing different plants at the beginning of each season: a process that continues to build soil. Crop Circle Market Gardens are mono cropped, that is to say planted with one type of plant, to maximize yield.

Need To Grow More of Everything?

Sponsor A Raised Root Grower

Growing To Give Root Gardens are designed to grow huge amounts of root vegetables in an incredibly small space. Because they use an off-site growing medium, they can grow root crops just about anywhere; a community garden, an urban farm, on top of a parking lot, an empty city lot – even a rooftop.

An agricultural grade weed prevention material covers the ground. Panels are assembled to form a 10-foot raised circle that is then filled with soil. An elevated stretch plank is used as an elevated gangway to broadcast carrot seeds on top of the growth medium. Broadcasting seeds with a Growing To Give Seed Dispenser ensures that carrot seeds are properly spaced, eliminating the need to thin carrots. The plank is also used to pull the handful of weeds that may appear before carrots tops grow thick enough to suppress them. A thin layer of growth medium about one half of an inch thick covers the seeds after broadcast.

In about 3 months, approximately 5,000 carrots are pulled in bunches by hand as the panels are disassembled.

After the season is done, the elevated root garden is disassembled, cleaned, and stored in a dry place. Keeping panels stored during the winter months will ensure that the root garden components will last for years - as many as 30 if the panels are properly cared for. The groundcover can stay down for 10 years or more before it needs to be replaced. Only the garden panels and irrigation system need to be assembled and disassembled each season.

The growth medium can either be discarded, replaced, or recharged each season. Creating a second growing area adjacent to the first, allows the 15-panel root garden to be disassembled and reassembled from one spot to another, simplifying next season year soil recharging and/or replacement.

Need To Grow More Carrots?