Gardening & Community Gardens

Gardening promotes good health by providing physical activity, reducing stress, teaching adults and children about the origins of healthy food, and provides fresh, affordable, healthy food!  There are lots of wonderful free resources available to families, communities and schools.

Basic Gardening Resources

• The Utah State University Extension has a website with useful tips for growing vegetables and herbs, caring for your soil, and tips for controlling pests in your garden. If you're new to gardening you can learn about gardening basics. There are also gardening apps available for your mobile device. If the classroom is more your style the extension also offers seasonal gardening classes at Thanksgiving Point.
• Wasatch Community Gardens has classes, workshops, and activities for kids.

Community Garden Resources

If you live where you don't have space for a garden a community garden might be a good fit. One such garden is the Wasatch Community Gardens, which includes many community gardens throughout Salt Lake County.

The American Community Gardening Association is a great resource to learn more about what it takes to start a successful community garden.

The Public Health Law Center has developed several garden resources for communities, addressing legal and policy issues.

Backyard Garden Share Programs

The Backyard Garden Share program finds a home for surplus produce from your home garden. Donated produce is distributed through sites such as food banks, pantries, schools, or churches. Learn more here.

• Waste Less Solution GardenShare: Waste Less Solution’s Backyard GardenShare program finds a home for surplus produce from your home garden. Donated produce is distributed through sites such as food banks, pantries, schools, or churches. Learn more here.
• The Green Urban Lunch Box Back-Farms Program : Back-Farms is a program run by The Green Urban Lunch Box out of Salt Lake City connects volunteer Garden Apprentices with senior citizens to build, cultivate, and maintain organic gardens in their backyards, providing a hands-on educational experience, connections, and fresh, local produce to all participants. To learn more about Back-Farms and Garden Apprentices Program, Click here.
• The Green Urban Lunch Box Fruitshare Program : FruitShare partners with fruit tree owners and community volunteers to harvest and distribute fruit that would otherwise go to waste. The program services trees as far north as Bountiful and as far south as Draper. Find out more about how to sign up your tree to feed the community or volunteer to harvest other neighborhood trees here.