Washington Street Garden

Washington Street Garden brings downtown Carbondale and the surrounding northeast neighborhood free, organic, fresh foods. From kale to collards, tomatoes to bing cherries, hazelnuts to mugwort, WSG grows perennial and annual vegetables, fruits, nuts, and herbs. The garden is organized by volunteers who make decisions by consensus through constant communication, planning, and meetings. 

2020 saw us partner with Carbondale Spring's Food Autonomy Project (CSFA), and bolstered our infrastructure with donations of tools and supplies, seeds, and a small amount of funding to pay some of our laborers. This year we installed a water catchment system (including a solar-powered pump); are in process of re-vamping our seed house; purchased supplies for frost protection row covers; and are doubling-down on seed saving for the local Seed Library. This winter we will plan our 2021 beds, including an expansion and concentration of medicinal (& pollinator friendly) herbs and shrubs, and perennial food crops. 

While trying to build an autonomous food system in Carbondale (and southern Illinois), we are in close dialogue with the CSFA, and other community gardeners, farmers, producers, and nonprofits working to build sustainable systems in southern Illinois, including the Red Hen Garden, the Southern Illinois Collaborative Kitchen, Libre Unschool,  the Neighborhood Planting Project, the local chapter of the Sierra Club, Saluki Volunteer Services, SIU's University Honors Program, and more.

Donating to the Washington St Garden helps us build a budget, plan for next year's season, and make maintaining the WSG more sustainable so we can all invest in more of what we love to do (including making more pollinator and medicinal gardens, helping to establish home gardens, sustaining a perennial and annual nursery, seed library maintenance, community herbalism, and more!). 

We hope you'll consider donating to WSG today! Please also join us live, Sunday October 4 2020 at the WSG for a perennial plant sale and garden tour. Details to come at www.facebook.com/washingtonstreetgarden