Welcome to our Community Garden!

Registering for a plot

Registration for new gardeners will be held on Saturday, March 26, from 10 to noon, at the Northampton Recreation Dep't. (90 Locust St., behind Smith Vocational School). 

The annual fee for a plot in 2011 is $22.  Gardeners are expected to contribute 2 hours annually in community service tasks.

First-year gardeners are limited to a single plot per household.  Applicants may live outside Northampton; there is an additional fee.

About the Garden

The Northampton Community Garden comprises 7 acres on Burts Pit Road just off Rte. 66 and occupies the former kitchen garden area of the Northampton State Hospital. Over 400 plots, each 20 ft x 20 ft, gardened singly or in double, triple, or quadruple combination, form the Garden’s living patchwork.

Each of 250 gardeners (or team of gardeners) pays a fee for the gardening season and contributes at least 2 hours of community service. The annual fee for a plot is $22.  Plots are roughly 20 x 20 ft.; access to water and tools is included in the fee.  Gardeners are expected to contribute 2 hours annually in community service tasks.  Running water, made-on-the-spot compost, and wood chips are provided. Gardeners use their plots to grow both vegetables and flowers.

Visitors are welcome--walkers as well as bird and butterfly watchers. They are asked to stay on grass paths, to leash their dogs, to refrain from smoking (to avoid infecting tomato plants with Tobacco Mosaic Virus), and to take nothing from the gardens.

Care and feeding of the garden

The Garden is a program of the Northampton Recreation Department and is managed by a Garden Committee of volunteers and maintained completely by gardeners. The Garden publishes a quarterly Newsletter.

All are welcome to attend Committee meetings, held on the 2nd Monday of each month—at the Recreation Department (90 Locust St.) during the winter and at the Garden during the summer. (Call 587-1040 to confirm time and place.)