Teaching you how to meet your neighbors, grow food together, share the harvest and create a life that excites you.

The Food is Free Project is creating a repeatable model of growing food and community. It is our vision and wish to empower you with the knowledge and know-how to transform your block and neighborhood step-by-step. Using salvaged materials we are building front yard community gardens for all to share. Imagine walking down a block lined with fresh produce ready for the picking. Neighbors not only growing food together, but becoming friends and supporting one another.

The Food is Free Project is a community building and gardening movement that launched in January of 2012 and recently filed as a 501c-3 Non-Profit. We teach people how to connect with their neighbors and work together to line their street with front yard community gardens that can be harvested and enjoyed by everyone in the community. The gardens are built and offered for free using salvaged resources that would otherwise be headed to the landfill and volunteer labor. Generous donations from local businesses help us fill the beds with soil, compost, and seeds or plant starts. Using these materials, we build drought-tolerant, wicking bed gardens, that require little maintenance and only need to be watered every 2-4 weeks. This simple tool makes home gardening accessible to everyone, regardless of experience level or available time. A wide variety of vegetables along the block promote neighbors to interact and connect, strengthening our communities while empowering them to grow their own food and reconnect with the earth.

Plant a front yard community garden and label it "Food is Free." Start to interact with your neighbors as you meet them in the garden and start a conversation about what you want your community to look like. By using food as a medium to connect us we can create communities that support one another, where we're safer, happier and sharing our passions.

Knowing What to Grow

• Ten Vegetables You Can Grow Without Full Sun
• Companion Planting – Plants that help each other
• AgriLife Extension Gardening Resources
• Texas Gardener Resources
• Planting Calendar for Travis County

Learning How to Grow

• Starting from Seed
• A Guide to Seed Saving(PDF)
• 100 Best Permaculture & Homesteading Books

After the Harvest

• How to Can and Preserve Food

Find Local Food

• Food is Free Gardens Network
• localharvest.org

Cultivating Community

• How to Organize a Seed Swap
• The Art of Creating Community by Guy Kowasaki
• The Power of Community (Documentary)