What We Do
We strive to deliver Jesus’ love in three ways.
The first is by feeding the hungry. We generate thousands of pounds of fresh produce each year for our economically challenged neighbors. To date we have delivered over 109 tons of fresh produce to hard pressed folks in Central Ohio. Most of that went to New Americans involved in English as second language (“ESL”) classes provided by Festa and Cornerstone Christian Fellowship. Significant amounts also go to local food pantries.
The second is by welcoming immigrants. We use the gardening process and the food it generates to welcome refugees from troubled regions around the world. We do that by building friendships, enhancing English language skills, and learning about each other’s cultures as we garden together and teach each other different ways to cook the crops we grow. We also do that through picnics at the end of most our gardening sessions and through weekly meetings of the Kid’s Gardening Club during the summer.
Third, we try to preserve God’s wonderful creation by diverting restaurant and yard waste from the waste stream into our compost bins. Every year we turn almost 800 cubic yards of waste into compost to recharge our soil. That is made possible by lots of compostable materials provided by Crimson Cup Coffee and Site Maintenance.
How We Do It
We are an all-volunteer operation. Most of our volunteers come from Upper Arlington Lutheran Church (“UALC”) and Cornerstone Christian Fellowship. We have a core of group of about a dozen volunteers, supplemented by fluctuating numbers of other volunteers and our ESL friends. We have been blessed with high quality volunteers; three of our garden stewards have won the “Community Gardener of the Year” award from Franklin Park Conservatory’s Growing to Green program.
We seek to maximize production because more production means less hunger and more welcoming for our ESL friends. We therefore work from a common plan to get as much as we can out of our space. We grow summer and fall crops. We also extensively use companion planting to enhance production. We became a completely organic operation during the 2014 growing season.
History
We are entering our eighteenth growing season.
We began in 2008 with a 40 by 80-foot plot of lousy soil, amended it, learned as we went forward, and ended up providing about 1,000 Lbs. of produce to hunger programs. We improved our operations in 2009 by more thorough planning, further amending our soil, recruiting more volunteers, adding an irrigation system and protective fencing. The result was that we tripled our impact—we provided 3,060 Lbs. of produce to hunger programs.
We had to relocate in 2010 because the land our original garden was on was sold. Although starting over was demanding, it allowed us to almost double our production space. We also improved our irrigation system, refined our crop sequencing/selection, involved more volunteers, and all that paid off—our production increased by 278% over the previous year.
We further expanded during the 2013 and 2014 seasons, both in terms of adding growing space and broadening our ministries. We added additional beds and our immigrant and composting ministries. We converted to completely organic operations in 2014.
We made a number of changes in 2020 to meet the increased demand caused by the pandemic, including converting to no-till/deep compost techniques. That has dramatically increased our production. Since 2020 we have produced an average of 21,730 Lbs. of organic produce every rear. 2024 was our best ever; God blessed us with 26,772.60 of produce.
We have been one of Central Ohio’s Hub Gardens since 2012.
Where We Are
Our garden is on UALC's Mill Run Campus, in northwest Columbus, Ohio, literally across the street from Hilliard Ohio. Our street address is 3500 Mill Run Dr., Columbus, Ohio, 43026.
We have 12,500 square feet of growing space, distributed between 53 raised beds. Our water comes from the Mill Run retention pond.
Who Supports Us
UALC generously provides our operating funding. That has been supplemented by grants from Scotts Miracle-Gro, City of Columbus, Franklin County, The Columbus Foundation, Franklin Park Conservatory’s Growing to Green program, and Columbus SOUP. We have also been blessed by in kind donations from Decker Construction, Home Depot in Hilliard, Darby Creek Nursery, Strader’s Garden Center, Johnny's Selected Seeds, High Mowing Organic Seeds, Crimson Cup Coffee, Mission Coffee, and Site Maintenance.
Contact Information
The best way to reach is through one of our Garden Stewards:
Todd Marti
614-306-1793 (cell)
Irma Chon
614-560-6190 (cell)
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