YD Gives Back
The Greater Good Gardening Project
We donate raised garden beds to community places around Madison, and free cedar beds to homeowners who share part of their harvest with local food pantries.
Why gardens
A raised bed puts good soil at a comfortable height, drains well in our heavy clay and grows a surprising amount of food in a small space. It's also the thing we build every week.
Fresh vegetables are some of the hardest food for a pantry to keep on hand. A garden bed in the neighborhood grows them every summer, for years. So we use what we're good at to put more of them in the ground.
Grow & give: a free cedar bed for a neighbor
Homeowners can be nominated for a free 4×8 cedar raised bed. The one thing we ask: share part of what it grows with a local food pantry.
Nominate a homeowner
Tell us who they are, where they live and why they'd make good use of a garden.
We build the bed
A 4×8 cedar raised bed, built in their yard by our crew.
They grow and share
They agree to donate a portion of their harvest to a local food pantry.
We do the rounds
Through the season we come by, pick up the donations and drop them off at the pantry.
Beds for community places
Schools, community centers, food pantries and shelters with room for a garden and people to tend it can be nominated too. We plan the beds with the people who'll use them, then build them on site.
Donated so far: raised beds for the Lussier Community Education Center, Madison, built to fit the lawn strip beside the building and ready for planting.
Ways to help
Nominate a homeowner
A neighbor, a friend, family: someone who'd grow a garden and share part of it with a food pantry.
Nominate a place
A school, center or program near Madison that could use a garden.
Wear the shirt
Greater Good Gardening shirts are coming soon. Every dollar of profit builds more beds.
Know someone who should have a garden?
Send us their name and a line about why. We read every nomination.
Nominate someone