About Us

Starting in 2010, we launched “Spring into Bed” a garden building day where 10 sets of raised beds were built in 1 weekend.  That evolved into Just Garden. We have built over 300 gardens since 2011 for many people from all walks of life in both private and public places. The common belief Just Garden has is that ALL PEOPLE deserve the right and ability to grow their own food for the families and communities; this should not be reserved for the wealthy.
The organization has morphed as time, energy, and money allowed, from a community program, to a fiscally sponsored program, to an official program of Tilth Alliance, back to a community program on a Thumb drive in 2017. Now we are building gardens again. We still believe everyone should have ability and knowledge to grow food, and Food is Power.

How we build a just food system and a culture of gardening for all people

We build connections between people who want to learn to garden, and people who can help them out, including help with the resource$ needed. Lumber, soil, seeds and starts all come from somewhere, and we help coordinate that. We are operating out of three hubs where our members have existing gardening networks, to start. Maybe someday Just Garden will exist in every city in the world! But for now we want to work with low income neighbors in or near to: 1. Rainier Beach, Seattle 2. Crown Hill, Seattle 3. Deer Park/Spokane.

Build Gardens-

Our common set up includes  3 raised beds with soil, seeds, starts, a growing guide and education for a growing season.  In this time of economic downturn however we are pushing and promoting gardens that might be harder to make, such as hugelkultur beds (https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/many-benefits-hugelkultur), but that use lots of free inputs, don’t break down as fast as raised beds, and have less watering and fertilizing needs in the long term. In Seattle, burlap from the coffee and chocolate industries is easy to source in large quantities, for free. Many arborists offer free wood chips. Construction projects in Seattle yield dumpsters full of untreated lumber for garden beds. If you look, you can find free grass clippings, and leaves as mulch, seaweed from the ocean as fertilizer… there are free inputs all over the place. Gardening can be free if we are willing to scrounge, and you know where to look.  However we also fund raise to buy inputs so we can cater our builds to the cultural desires and needs of the gardener. We offer raised beds, root pouches, container gardening, in-ground beds, mulch gardens, and hugelkultur beds.

Due to Covid-19 we are choosing to have less people at our builds (party size will depend on the size of the site, and how spread out the layout of the garden will be). This means we are focusing, at least in the beginning on smaller builds. A small container garden, a little planter to grow greens on your balcony, these are things we can help you with.

If you are out of our service area, or we are out of funding, we can always work with you to brainstorm your resources and work on getting your garden going on a shoe-string budget, or no budget. The earth is here for all of us, so if you have the will, there will be a way.  Please see our resources section for other gardeners who are doing similar things in the area.

Educate Gardeners-

We host in person as well as online classes to help new gardeners meet with seasoned gardeners to share experience, resources and more. This education piece is a critical piece of the puzzle, and we work with culturally competent garden coaches.

Celebrate-

We celebrate what we value. We value gardening, good food, and community. Music and dancing encouraged as well, as much as we can.