Urban Agriculture
Louisville Grows’ Urban Agriculture program aims to influence availability, quality and quantity of fresh food and lower cost to create a healthier food security system in our community.
Our main focus with community gardens is to build capacity within the gardens by providing technical assistance, education and infrastructure. Through our annual Fundraiser, Seed & Starts Sale, we are able to offer Community Garden Grants in late fall of each year to support these capacity building endeavors.
The Urban Agriculture program has assisted community gardens with building raised beds and irrigation systems, installing beehives, planting fruit trees and berry bushes and developing community gathering spaces. We’re working with community gardens and Louisville residents to grow a more just and sustainable city.
Seeds & Starts Sale
Get your garden started with low-cost plant starts from Louisville Grows’ Seeds & Starts Sale. This yearly plant sale helps community members grow and eat fresh produce from their backyards and community gardens. Proceeds from the sale directly support Louisville Grows’ Community Garden Grant program.
At the Seeds & Starts Sale, you are able to purchase plants for your yard or community garden plots for a lower price than you’ll find in local stores. Each spring, we use volunteer help to grow thousands of plants in our greenhouse to sell at-cost to the community. We offer a wide variety of heirloom and vegetables, flowers, fruit trees, berry bushes, soil, compost, and more. The Seeds & Starts program simplifies gardening for home growers and increases the number of backyard and community gardeners throughout Louisville Metro. Support local gardeners and community gardens at our biggest annual fundraiser for Louisville Grows!
Community Garden Grant
The Louisville Grows Community Garden Grant provides funding and in-kind materials for new or expanding community gardens managed by community organizations, garden clubs, after-school programs, neighborhood associations, faith-based organizations, and motivated community members. If a grant is awarded, groups are required to provide 10% in matching funds. Groups may apply for funding of garden construction, soil preparation, seeds and starts, tools, rain barrels or other irrigation methods, fencing, and/or compost and other gardening needs.
In addition to providing funding, all gardens that receive funding will be designated as an official Louisville Grows garden, which provides the benefits of garden signage, year round technical and educational support, groups of volunteers as requested, social media promotion, and networking opportunities to ensure the community garden’s long term success. A Community Garden Grant Workshop will be offered each year before the grant application is opened. The workshop will focus on the Community Garden Toolkit, grant application requirements and other benefits of the grant. A representative from the community garden MUST attend the workshops in order to submit a grant application.
Community Garden Toolkit
The Community Garden Toolkit is a guide intended to help garden leaders develop and maintain community gardens. The toolkit provides steps to starting and sustaining a community garden, guidelines, responsibilities, roles, benefits and events associated with many successful community gardens. It outlines the expectations and rewards for participants, and offers advice for including new community members in the growth of a community garden.
The structure and information provided have been adapted from the Louisville Metro Government Department of Economic Growth and Innovation’s Community Gardens in Louisville: A Start-Up Guide and the University of Missouri extension office’s Community Gardening Toolkit and Gardener’s Welcome Packet.
Why Gardens?
A community garden transforms a neighborhood by providing fresh and local produce for plot holders, nourishing surrounding residents with edible fruit trees and bushes planted around the site, hosting agricultural workshops throughout the year for community members to share knowledge and learn from experts, introducing children to nature in a safe and accessible way, offering community members the garden as a neighborhood
meeting or event spaces, and nurturing green oases that increase property values and decrease crime and vandalism.
In 2017, Louisville Grows released the Community Garden Toolkit and Community Garden Grant to assist neighborhoods that want to start or expand a community garden. This toolkit guides community members through the process of starting a garden from the ground up, such as writing a land lease, installing water on the property, and engaging their neighbors through grassroots organizing. This toolkit encouraged even more neighborhoods across the city to start and maintain community gardens. The Louisville Grows 2017 Community Garden Grant provides up to $1,000 (monetary funds or in-kind materials) for new or expanding gardens managed by community organizations, garden clubs, after-school programs, neighborhood associations, faith-based organizations, and motivated community members in Louisville, KY.
Join Us
Interested in joining one of our gardens?
Email us and we’ll put you in contact with our garden leaders!
JOIN LOUISVILLE GROWS BUZZ!