Plant Gardens.
Grow Community.

We deliver sustainable garden strategies to help you
cultivate stronger schools and communities

Learn more

Why Community Gardens?

Community garden members meeting in a circle.

Community Grows

Shared goals in the garden grow into fruitful relationships between neighbors or schoolmates.

Health Improves

More active minds and bodies, more control of what we eat, the ability to grow culturally relevant produce, and upping our fruit & veggie intake? Gardens are public health workhorses. 💪

Adults helping kids plant flowers in a garden bed.

Classrooms Come to Life

Science, math, health, and other subjects are more engaging when lessons can be applied directly in the garden.

Pollinators Thrive

Organic gardens improve our ecosystem and support pollinators, who need our help as they're hard at work creating 1/3 of our food supply!

Green veggies abound in a backyard garden bed.

Food is Near

Food gardens reduce carbon emissions since produce is eaten near where it's grown. (This also means it's packed with more flavor, since it's vine-ripened for longer!)

Communities Strengthen

Stronger community bonds and consistent activity on the street can reduce opportunistic neighborhood crime.

Why Community Gardens?

garden meeting sitting in circle

Community Grows

Shared goals in the garden grow into fruitful relationships between neighbors or schoolmates.

Health Improves

More active minds and bodies, more control of what we eat, the ability to grow culturally relevant produce, and upping our fruit & veggie intake? Gardens are public health workhorses. 💪

Pollinators Thrive

Organic gardens improve our ecosystem and support pollinators, who need our help as they're hard at work creating 1/3 of our food supply!

Adults helping kids plant flowers in a garden bed.

Classrooms Come to Life

Science, math, health, and other subjects are more engaging when lessons can be applied directly in the garden.

Green veggies abound in a backyard garden bed.

Food is Near

Food gardens reduce carbon emissions since produce is eaten near where it's grown. (This also means it's packed with more flavor, since it's vine-ripened for longer!)

Communities Strengthen

Stronger community bonds and consistent activity on the street can reduce opportunistic neighborhood crime.

Community gardens overflow with opportunities, but

there are many hurdles to overcome in any project:

Barren blueprint

Organizations may have the vision, the programming, and even the budget, but lack the time and expertise to start (and maintain!) a garden project.

Lonely leadership

Gardens are too often coordinated by one person, who may be overwhelmed and looking for help that never comes, increasing the odds of them burning out and passing the torch again.

Maintaining momentum

Coordinators might not know how to keep gardeners engaged over the long season or how to embed the garden into the fabric of the broader community, which ensures its continued growth and vitality.

You don’t have to grow it alone.

GrowingSpaces Consulting is your teammate to get that garden project up and running—and to keep it thriving for the long haul.

Child and adult planting a seedling in a garden bed.

Site and crop planning

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Pitching your vision

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Sustaining garden leadership

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Community buy-in

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Finding external funding

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Fruitful partnerships

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Volunteer recruitment

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Participatory facilitation methods

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Dividing the work

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Evaluating project success

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Publicizing wins and impact

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Site and crop planning 〰️ Pitching your vision 〰️ Sustaining garden leadership 〰️ Community buy-in 〰️ Finding external funding 〰️ Fruitful partnerships 〰️ Volunteer recruitment 〰️ Participatory facilitation methods 〰️ Dividing the work 〰️ Evaluating project success 〰️ Publicizing wins and impact 〰️

We help you create customized solutions to meet your needs: whatever your gardening project,
in whatever phase it’s in.

Get in touch

  CONVENER

About Kirsten

Kirsten Saylor is a dynamic and compassionate leader, who has harnessed gardens as vehicles for change across the Twin Cities for the last two decades. From the Green Institute, to Gardening Matters, to various school districts and community projects, Kirsten knows that magic happens when people get their hands dirty while aligned with a common purpose. Kirsten is passionate about partnering with schools, organizations, and local community garden groups to build sustainable garden projects that enrich local ecosystems while nourishing a collective spirit.

Photo of Kirsten, smiling, with glasses perched atop her head and with lovely green foliage in the background.

COLLABORATOR 

      ENERGIZER

Previous Projects and Partnerships

  • Kirsten with elementary students who participated in the Bruce Vento Garden Project.

    Bruce Vento Elementary

  • Compilation of various photos of students working with gardens, pulled from the St. Paul Public Schools website about the Grow Our Own program, which Kirsten supported.

    St. Paul Public Schools

  • Kirsten working with a student, both crouched over a schoolyard garden bed.

    Howe Elementary

  • Graphic from the SGSO Network website of a four-leaf plant, with each leaf having a label: Policies, Students, Gardens, Teachers.

    SGSO Network

  • Cover page of Food Safety for School Gardens manual, which Kirsten co-authored.

    UMN Extension

  • Close-up of honey bees on a hive, to symbolize the work of Pollinate Minnesota.

    Pollinate Minnesota

  • Cover image for 2014 UMN Schoolyard Gardens Conference, which Kirsten helped plan.

    UMN Landscape Arboretum

Jonas Kazlauskas, Urban Farm Program Manager

Photo of Jonas, the manager of Little Earth Urban Farm.

“Kirsten was exactly what we needed when we reached a pivotal moment at the Little Earth Urban Farm. She visited the farm and was able to see what was most important for the success of our project. She helped us find the questions that we needed to be asking, and gave us valuable frameworks for navigating them. I would highly recommend anyone in the farm/garden space to work with Kirsten. It is clear she has many years of experience intentionally growing and working with communities.”