Rent Your Own Community Garden Plot at LaFarm!
LaFarm has 35 community garden plots available for members of the Lafayette College community to rent. Plots are available first come, first served and must be managed with natural gardening practices. Each plot is maintained by the renter for you to grow all the veggies you care to eat (and share!).
Mission & Goals
Our community garden is about growing great food in a healthy environment. Our interaction with nature and with the whole Lafayette Community is also paramount to the garden experience. Strengthening this sense of community through a common goal of Stewardship & Cooperation is something that gardening can do, naturally.
As members of this community we agree to steward the land, soil, food, water resources and plant biodiversity at Lafayette, in our gardens and beyond… & of course there are the veggies.
Garden Guidelines
Plot Rentals
Garden plots are offered as either full (20′ x 40′) or half (10′ x 20′) plots and priced accordingly; each plot is rented for one growing season. If you are not staying in your same plot next year, all materials, plant and otherwise, must be taken out of your plot by the end of the season.
Grow Your Own
LaFarm Community Garden & Working Farm is not certified organic, but we do follow organic guidelines and ask all community gardeners to do the same. Please use untreated seeds and organic soil/ compost sources & amendments. No Miracle-gro, Round-up, or neon-colored seeds, please! Not sure what you can and cannot use in your garden? For a full list of organically approved materials please see OMRI.org (Organic Materials Review Institute).
We organize collective ordering of compost, mulch, & more to help make gardening as easy, and community-driven, as possible.
Maintain Your Own
All maintenance of your plot and the pathways in and around your plot are up to you, the grower. This includes mowing, harvesting, watering, planting, and weeding your space and your outside/ adjacent pathways.
The garden has two water systems. A gravity-fed rain water system, built by Prof. Brandes’ CE 351 class, feeds spigots along the fence and through some of the walkways. This supply can be tight if we are low on rain. All watering from this system must be done with watering cans. Hoses are not permitted. The other system, fed by municipal water, is accessible through the spigot in front of the new green house. This spigot is frequently needed during the day by students working at La Farm, but is also available to community gardeners. There is a hose permanently attached that reaches most plots. All garden water is a shared resource and a privilege. Do not turn on any spigot and walk away. Watering should be done in the a.m. or at dusk to help conserve water. Please alert the farm manager if you see leaks!
Hold Your Own
Part of a healthy garden is how you manage it: and for an organic garden this can mean a lot of weed management. Weeds produce weed seeds to make more weeds for you and everyone around you. Weeds decrease air circulation, harbor pests, and take up water & nutrients that your edible plants need to thrive. But weeding means spending more time out in your garden doing what you love! Right? So keep your weeds down, and your neighbors & veggies will thank you.
We hope you will garden with your family as you wish. Kids are welcome in the garden as long as they are with an adult. Pets are not allowed in the garden, please!
Please use the Metzgar Athletic Field entrance, park on the paved road that leads down to the garden, and always close gates & lock the tool shed when you leave.
clean garden deposit
To help keep weeds at bay, a clean garden deposit is included on all plots. New gardeners are required to place a $35 cover crop deposit for full plots, $15 for half plots. No additional deposit is needed for returning gardeners.
If you find that you cannot keep up with your garden, let us know and we will use your deposit to till in your crops and plant a cover crop. If your plot goes unmanaged for a noticeable part of the season, the Garden Manager will contact you and discuss a time frame for tilling and cover cropping your plot. If you do not use your deposit, it will be retained for your cover crop deposit for the next season or returned (whichever you prefer).
Ready to Grow
There are plots available in the community garden! Interested? Email communitygarden@lafayette.edu.
Meet some of our community gardeners!
