The Mt. Washington Arboretum Community Vegetable Garden

Take a video tour of the Garden!

It is an organic garden that uses no pesticides or chemical fertilizers.  Decisions about what we grow, and how we work, are made together in order to fully harness the knowledge, skills and enriching diversity of everyone involved.  Ours is an evolving methodology that is all about community, education, respect for the earth and its humans, and of course, good eating. Fun is also essential.

We believe strongly in education and want our garden to be a lively and working example of good gardening practices. We seek opportunities to involve children from the nearby Mt Washington School and surrounding community.

We like to spend our money at local, family-owned farms when possible. We are members of the Farm Alliance of Baltimore that “uses connection, resource sharing, and collective advocacy with respect to food, land and water to expand communities’ self-determination and power.“ We collaborate with other Baltimore urban gardens whenever possible.

Lately, we grow nearly everything ourselves from seed, including many seeds collected from our garden. This practice yields strong plants adapted to our climate and practices. We believe in sustainable gardening practices that create and maintain the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony to support present and future generations.

For example, we recently used PCDA grant funds to build a solar-powered drip irrigation system that uses collected rainwater. We have members who are part of University of Maryland’s master gardeners program, and novices who just want to learn. The MWACVG is an open “grow lab” where everyone is learning and exploring together.

Interested in joining or contributing to our cause?

Send us an email. Or, just show up at one of the times listed above and come introduce yourself. We love having visitors.

Sometimes we stop to watch butterflies.

Having a garden full of plants that need to be pollenated, we are thankful for all the pollinators that come to visit. We are blessed to have an apiary of multiple hives located at the back of the Arboretum. The apiary is managed by one of our garden members (Jude Lombardi). It is just one of the many ways that all the areas of the Mt Washington Arboretum function together.

We are immensely grateful to the Mount Washington Preservation Trust (MWPT) and its members for supporting our garden. The MWPT oversees the land we use, provides funding (in addition to our member dues), and also manages many of the other gardens and plantings around Mount Washington. The MWPT works tirelessly to help make the Garden, and Mount Washington, a more beautiful place. Be on the lookout for the Trust’s fundraising letter and know that anything given to the MWPT helps us too.

We would also like to thank all of our Mt Washington neighbors, especially Keith Hamilton who shares a border with the garden and Arboretum, and who has always supported our activities and provided assistance. It takes a village.