Leicester Library Giving Garden

 

A giving garden with an educational focus, nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina.

The Leicester Library Giving Garden aims to connect and strengthen our community through growing and sharing food.

OUR VISION

A permaculture design team created a vision to transform the Leicester Library grounds into a productive and beautiful edible landscape. A multi-phase installation established perennial tree and nut crops, pollinator habitat, and annual gardens integrated into the landscape. The gardens are accessible to the community gathering areas, peaceful seating, and in-garden educational areas.

2021: Phase One – building garden rows, installing wheelchair-accessible cedar raised beds, planting fruit & nut trees along the fence lines.

2022: Expanding the garden with the construction of a greenhouse, sharing the garden’s bounty of fresh produce & herbs with our community.

2023: Breaking new ground to install an orchard of fruit and nut trees, on land generously shared with us by the Leicester Volunteer Fire Department.

Come grow with us!

We can begin by doing small things at the local level, like planting community gardens or looking out for our neighbors. That is how change takes place in living systems, not from above but from within, from many local actions occurring simultaneously.

 

– Grace Lee Boggs.

Upcoming Events

October 13, 2023

Dinner & A Movie

Thank you to our volunteers & patrons who came out to make this event a success! We had ~140 guests enjoy a community dinner & a movie.

DIG IN!

Garden Work Days

We meet every other Saturday afternoon, weather permitting.
Just bring your gardening gloves and dress for the weather!

  • Sat 11/4/23 – 1pm – 4pm
  • Sat 11/18/23 – 1pm – 4pm

Latest from the Garden Journal

Follow along with our community garden journey to see what we grow and how we grow it. Learn about educational and community events, as well as other opportunities to get involved and grow! 

A Successful Season of Growing & Giving

A Successful Season of Growing & Giving

1,664+ Volunteer Hours! 1,140+ Pounds of Produce! Conceptualizing, installing, and maintaining a community fridge helps lay the groundwork for developing local food polices. We look forward to impacting generations to come by establishing an educational fruit & nut orchard for the Leicester community.

New Year, New Greenhouse, New Orchard!

New Year, New Greenhouse, New Orchard!

If you’ve visited the Leicester Library recently, you may have noticed something BIG out in the garden! We are so excited for this project that will bring food to our community for generations to come. Please contact us if you have wood chips to donate!

Summer Greetings from the Garden!

Summer Greetings from the Garden!

JUNE We kicked off the summer season with "An Evening in the Garden", our first official garden party! We invited our community out to the library to celebrate the hard work & collaboration between all who have made the Leicester Library Giving Garden possible. It...

A Special Thanks to Our Sponsors

Help Us Grow!

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