February 2021
Garden Events
Get the network involved by submitting your next event directly to our submission page. Webinars, courses, conferences, one-time or reoccurring events, all apply!
See what’s coming up on our Statewide Garden Calendar
Fund Your Garden
Visit our website for a regularly updated list of garden-related grants.
Find upcoming grants on our Garden Grants page
Connect with Fellow Garden Coordinators
Our closed Facebook group is a forum for your garden management questions, and a platform to swap resources and share stories.
Become a Member
Join us! By belonging to VCGN, you are part of something bigger than your own home or community garden. MEMBERS invest in better access to gardening for others and build deeper connections with gardeners across Vermont.
Enjoy exclusive communications and priority access to resources, attend a member appreciation mixer and display your support of gardening with a decal or garden sign.
Best of all, VCGN membership is a fun way to connect people with a shared goal of helping, inspiring and learning from other gardeners across Vermont.
Sign up for or renew your annual VCGN Membership
Vermont Gardening Resources: Where Do you Find Them?
We want to hear from you!
For years we’ve been hearing from gardeners in our network: “Wouldn’t it be great to have a list of where to find the resources you need to set up and run a garden…” Well this is our year to put that list together and WE NEED YOUR HELP!
Tell us about the places you frequent and the people you turn to to help make your garden grow each season. These can be companies or organizations from which you purchase supplies or ask for donations, people who offer services, lending libraries, swap events, or even places where you salvage materials.
Click here to share your input
Please send your ideas soon so we can share out as people are preparing for the season! And THANK YOU!
Get Involved, Get Inspired
Regeneration Corps: A learning movement for justice & land
The idea was hatched in fall 2019 as part of a Just Transition Working Group, which zeroed in on the critical intersection between the climate crisis, racial justice, regenerative agriculture, and youth empowerment. Out of that blossomed Regeneration Corps, a learning collaboration between high school-aged students in Vermont and leading organizations in resilience and agriculture. The Regeneration Corps collective acts as mentors for students as they learn skills of community organizing and integrating these themes into their lives.
Read on for more about this transformational new program and how to get involved.
Our Annual Burlington Seed Swap… a little different this year
Like so many things, COVID has forced us to go virtual for the much anticipated Seed Swap. The good news? Our new BTV Seed Swap can reach more people and be season long! Check out the offerings and requests. Not in Burlington? Some folks will mail (offer to send an addressed, stamped envelope) OR start your own swap with this guidance – which helped us get started.
Community Teaching Garden Course (Burlington)
Join us for weekly lessons and hands-on garden work. Learn how to plant, cultivate, harvest, and preserve produce from your own garden bed. Monthly make-and-take workshops featuring herbalism and food preservation are also included!
This six month course takes place May – October, Wednesdays, 5-7pm, at the Ethan Allen Homestead in the New North End of Burlington.
Hurry – there are only a few spots left! Click here for details & registration
Network Asks & Opportunities
Soil Health and Community Resilience: Stories from the North
Connecting healthy soil, people, projects, skills, and ideas to increase community resilience in the North. That’s the theory behind a six-event webinar series, Soil Health and Community Resilience: Stories from the North hosted by the Vermont Healthy Soils Coalition, the Littleton Food Co-op, and over 30 local community organizations and businesses. The events will be held on six alternating Wednesday nights from 6:30 to 8:00 pm from February through April 2021.
Click here for details & registration
Plant a Tree in Your Garden with Rewild Vermont
350VT’s Rewild Vermont project builds on synergies between food justice, climate action, and ecological restoration. We’re organizing across the state to plant 100 thousand native, fruit, and nut trees in Vermont by 2022. We are now looking for places to plant trees! If you are interested in planting or working with us to plant trees on your land – either native trees to provide ecosystem services or fruit/nut trees for the community (either as community orchards open for anyone to come and harvest, or that volunteers would harvest and bring to food pantries, etc., which we could help to arrange) – contact jaiel@350vt.org to get involved and to help sow the seeds for a vibrant and livable future.
NOFA-VT Winter Conference 2021:Honor, Energize, Imagine
This February, in lieu of NOFA-VT’s in-person conference, they are planning a month-long series of events with many different opportunities for community building and connection through workshops, speakers, film and community art. Workshops and speakers will take place virtually over the course of the month from February 7th through March 4th. This series will also be the kick-off of a year-long celebration for NOFA-VT’s 50th anniversary!
Check out the schedule & register
Join the Movement!
Gardens for Hope & Health
In this uncertain time, gardens help heal by providing hope, resiliency and food! Many more Vermonters are seeking help to start gardens and we are working to provide resources for people at home and in the community. If you can, please make a donation today so more people can grow their own food and build healthier futures.
Since 2001, the Vermont Community Garden Network has worked with hundreds of community and school groups to start, sustain, and grow gardens, building strong local food systems and vibrant educational sites.
Contact us – We’d love to hear from you!
Email us: first name (at) vcgn.org
Michelle Gates, Executive Director
Libby Weiland, Statewide Network Coordinator
Carolina Lukac, Garden Education Manager
Vermont Community Garden Network | www.vcgn.org
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