Community Gardens
I'm under construction! Check back soon :)
While community gardening is not all TRMF has set out to do, it is central to our mission and values to produce food locally and sustainably. A big thank you to our volunteers, local businesses and the TR Public Works department who have made this possible!
As we continue to GROW, we take on new garden plots. In time, we intend to have one community garden producing food per square mile of land in Toms River. We are also happy to help set up home gardens - give us a shout if you are interested or know someone who might be interested!
About The Gardens
Our garden designs are planned around their specific location, and we hope to utilize each space to the best of its ability while restoring soil and moving towards a majority of perennial plants. We use several planting styles such as hugelkultur, raised lasagna beds, in-ground beds, keyhole, herb spirals, vertical growing, containers, and so on. Our gardens use a combination of soil from the location itself, town compost/mulch, and organic store-bought garden/potting soil. In the 2016 growing season we will begin innoculating sheet mulchings with oyster and/or king stropharia mushrooms.
Each of our food-growing gardens aims to provide a space that is not only productive but beautiful and enjoyable to visit. For this reason, we take into account relaxation spaces in each garden design, and aim to make our pathways wide enough to be accomodating to everyone. All gardens also have at least one area specifically dedicated to pollinators, also providing color and fragrance to the area.
Our gardens will always be open to the public and our only request regarding harvest is that any food taken from the garden be taken with consideration to others who visit as well. Of food that is harvested, 1/3 will be given to volunteers and 1/3 will be given to free food distributors such as Food Not Bombs. The remaining 1/3 will be used for varying purposes such as community cooking classes, given to local businesses, etc. ​
Finally, we do not and will not use synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides or pesticides. We appreciate efforts to ensure great harvests, but ask everyone to respect this by not adding any synthetics while visiting, no spraying, etc. Thank you for your consideration, and we hope you enjoy the gardens!
TERRACE AVENUE GARDEN
Our first garden! Started in 2015, Terrace Avenue is a small but promising garden.
This year, we completely redid the design for Terrace Avenue. The new beds are in! We utilized a lot of curves and circles at this garden. There is also a three sisters bed, and in May a goji bush was added. Happy happy!
Terrace Avenue/Dickinson Avenue Corner
6TH AVENUE GARDEN
3003 6th Avenue
Easily the biggest plot we are working this year, 6th Avenue has enormous potential to not only be a space for producing food and housing pollinators, but being a great community space as well.
So far, we have built two herb spirals, put in three raised beds, added a (huge!) compost turner, and laid out where the rest of our beds will go.
We will be adding a huge squash/bean/grape trellis that will extend across the center area, benches, several raised beds, a little free library, a magnificent hugelkultur mound, a variety of native plants to rewild some spaces,
flowers galore, fruit trees, and hopefully a small moveable stage for musicians to play on community nights. No tearing down trees or destroying nature needed! 6th Avenue is far from being complete, but it is on its way! Thank you Ocean Organics for supplying their food waste, which we will be using here to feed our worms and turning into compost for all our gardens.
NATURAL FOOD STORE GARDEN
The Natural Food Store garden is growing so well! We have several beds in a variety of fun shapes here, a 3 sisters woven bed, a pollinator area.
We are almost finished with the mulching here, and then a few potted plants, an herb garden for the apothecary, a sitting area, and possibly a fruit tree will complete the garden, while giving back to our community and the land it's built on. Please check our workshops and gardens work days if you are interested in getting involved.
A big thank you to Jay, the owner of the Natural Food Store, for letting us put a garden here, for setting up the water system and being so wonderful every step of the way.
We greatly appreciate you! :)
675 Batchelor Street
EMS STATION GARDEN
The EMS station has finally started! Four small raised beds were added, seeded, and planted thanks to donations coming in from our fundraiser. We still have work to do here, including: adding a fruit tree, berries, a pollinator area, a small sitting area, and another (larger) raised bed.
Next year we will be adding a three sisters woven bed. If we can collect the materials needed to make a large woven bed for this year, we will be planting veggies in it as it is a bit late for corn! :)
2330 3rd Avenue
Thank you so much to the EMS station for allowing us to use some of their space to plant this garden! We hope to create a beautiful and relaxing space for you! :)
Live in the area? We are looking for someone interested in having a free rainwater catchment system added to their home in exchange for using part of the water for the gardens! Send us a mail if that's you! :)