Garfield Community Farm

We seek to learn, teach and practice organic gardening and farming in the places that have been neglected and abandoned in and with the neighborhood of Garfield.

We are located at the corner of Cornwall Street and Wicklow Street in the Garfield neighborhood.

During the winter of 2008 a group from The Open Door Presbyterian Church, in partnership with Valley View Presbyterian Church, began making plans to do organic gardening on abandoned or unused land in East Liberty and Garfield. Our plans focused on beginning the reclamation of nearly three acres near the water tower in Garfield and small scale food production at two smaller gardens, one in Garfield at Valley View Presbyterian Church and one at the Union Project in Highland Park.

Our two small gardens were successful teaching tools for community and congregation members. We learned together how to organically and sustainably care for a garden, harvest produce, and make it available to the community. We began work on a large three acre tract of land in Garfield in the spring of 2008, but quickly had to slow down our plans. Due to contaminated soil, invasive plant species, and a desire to create neighborhood ownership and excitement, we worked slowly developing effective plans and long term solutions. So far we have worked with over one hundred different volunteers to put in thousands of volunteer hours at our gardens in East Liberty and Garfield.

Over the spring and summer of 2009 Garfield Community Farm had its first real growing season. With our neighborhood interns, volunteers from The Open Door Church and other local churches and neighborhood groups, and our small staff, we were able to have a successful growing season. Our success was not only evident in crops yielded, but in relationships built, connections made with other neighborhood groups, and progress made for future expansion.