Welcome to our Community Garden!

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 (currently $18/plot) for the gardening season and contributes at least 2 hours of community service. Running water, communal tools, 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.

Registering for a plot

For the moment, all the available plots for 2009 are assigned. Prospective gardeners may put their names on a waiting list at the Northampton Recreation Dep't., 90 Locust St., Northampton.

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.)