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Volunteering at Village Farm

Volunteering at Village Farm

Suzanne Johnson

If you’re looking for a way to connect with your neighbors here at Village Farm Austin, get growing. You don’t need experience, just a willingness to learn and to offer a hand.

I moved here exactly a year ago and found that the Bergstrom Community Garden (BCG) was being prepared to open for business in the spring. This offered a wonderful opportunity for volunteering. Building raised beds and filling them with soil, volunteers created a welcoming garden that serves Village Farm, Loma Vista, Agave and other nearby neighborhoods.

By joining others on Saturdays to help get the beds ready for planting, I was able to do three things:

• Dig my hands in the dirt and spend time in nature.

• Learn about what makes good soil, what to plant and when, and how to fight pests organically.

• Get to know my neighbors.

There’s something about working together toward a common goal that connects people. And when that goal is planting, growing, and harvesting delicious vegetables and lovely flowers, we find ourselves enriched by the earth as well.

There are plenty of opportunities to get involved:

Green Gate Farms. Drop in at the barn on any Wed, Thurs, or Sat, 9am-12pm. No pressure and no experience necessary. Greengate Farms is a privately owned farm leasing land from Village Farm. Learn more here: https://www.greengatefarms.net/volunteer.

Village Farm Pocket Parks. Multiple raised beds are located in two pocket parks in The Founders section and one set of beds in Phase 1. Historically, these beds have been managed by Garden Club members. The food and flowers grown in these beds is free to Village Farm residents. To learn more, please attend the Garden Club the second Wednesday every month at the red barn. Or just stop and visit if you see us working in the beds. https://www.vfresident.com/groups/garden-club

Bergstrom Community Garden. BCG offers private leasable allotments. So if you’d like to try your hand with one of the plots, apply here: https://www.vfresident.com/bergstrom-community-gardens.