Growing Gardens

Growing Gardens was originally inspired by the legacy of Dan Barker’s Home Gardening Project that built over 1,400 Home Gardens in Portland between 1983 and 1996. When Dan transitioned from building gardens to building a foundation supporting the start-up of programs across the country, a new and separate organization was incorporated in 1996 as the Portland Home Garden Project.

Building home gardens and responding to local demand for school gardens and other organizations creating garden-based education programs, our name changed in 1998 to Growing Gardens to reflect the breadth of mission. We work with hundreds of volunteers to build home gardens, school gardens, and gardens for other organizations, providing three-year support, supplies, seeds and plants, mentoring and more. Our Youth Grow after-school and summer garden clubs nurture the next generation of veggie eaters and growers while our Learn & Grow Workshops educate gardeners of all stripes to grow food at their doorstep. Planting seeds for good food, healthy people and strong communities...we help people GROW!