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Community Garden

View of the garden with welcome signFounded in 2007, the Medtronic Foundation Community Garden at Augsburg University is a vibrant, shared space where neighbors, students, faculty and alumni come together to grow food, build relationships, and cultivate community. Located on Augsburg Campus, in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, the garden reflects the diversity, resilience and creativity of all the people who live and grow here.

The garden is led by four core goals; to provide a space for the community to learn together; to beautify both neighborhood and campus; to offer growing space for those who otherwise lack it; and to support gardeners in securing a healthy diet. Augsburg offers tools, water, compost, seeds, seedlings and space that helps support these sustainable, meaningful connections to food and land. While the university offers the property, the heart of the garden is in the hands of the community.

The garden is made up of 64 personal plots and 3 communal student-tended plots. While the  garden operates on a personal-plot model, the shared space itself is deeply communal. Gardeners have come from all over: Minnesota farms, communities from Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen, and Mexico. Over 5 languages are spoken here, and many of our gardeners grow vegetables and herbs from around the world, reflecting their cultural traditions. The garden also has communal edges that are open to everyone: fruit trees such as apples, raspberry bushes in the fall and asparagus and strawberries in the spring.

The Augsburg Community Garden is more than a place to grow food, it’s also a space for experiential education. Students on campus engage with the garden through classes, volunteer work, and research, learning firsthand about sustainability, food justice, and community resilience.

You can contact the Community Garden Coordinator at garden@augsburg.edu. This email is monitored during the garden season, typically May through October.A picture of the garden with many of our happy gardeners