Restoring gardens
Our Story
Restoring Gardens was established in 2024 by Christa, a mom with a background in Nursing, who recognized that an increasing amount of food consumed by children tended to be presented to them in a package. Coupled with the increasing research regarding nutrient density in food and sustainable soil health, nutrition as a whole started to feel more pressing.
With a dream of moving to land and homesteading with her family on a larger scale, Christa realized the cost of purchasing the ideal plot of land in the Twin Cities and suburbs would require a substantial amount of debt or a great amount of time reconstructing a fixer-upper. Both options felt counter-intuitive to the main mission of trying to give more and connect better with the community.
Christa decided that in the meantime, aside from any major acreage, she would adamantly grow what she could, where she could. Then when her townhome rock beds were maxed out with fruits, herbs, flowers, and vertically growing vegetables, she continued to grow food with other people, together producing hundreds of pounds of tomatoes, learning varying methods of farming and gardening, and practicing skills to preserve the harvest.
Throughout this all-consuming new-found interest in growing food in a sustainable way, Christa and her family simultaneously helped others learn how to grow food for their first time. Cooking almost every meal at home opened everybody’s eyes to the increasing cost of food.
Note from the founder:
At this point, I got my family on board with the vision, started to set bigger goals, started asking a lot of people a lot of questions, and collaborated with several local gardeners and farmers who became friends throughout the process.
Growing food changed from a “me” project into a “we” project as we found our feet rooted in community.
P.s. Can you name everything pictured here? This is one of my favorite reminders of harvest days and the powerful beauty, scents, & flavors that come with a garden!
– Christa
From Me to We.
The initial goal was quite simply to grow food.
Then we realized we could help children learn about varying textures and flavors early on in life, just by inviting them to pick beans and cucumbers and tomatoes with us. We offered a variety of foods at our house like home-fermented sauerkraut, strawberry rhubarb jam, and pickled peppers.
More than once, parents would express sentiments such as “She actually ate a green bean?! She would have never eaten that if it were on her dinner plate.”
It was encouraging to notice children and adults developing a taste for foods that we could teach them to grow and preserve.
A continuously compounding list of reasons urged us to start something that would impact the community in a positive way.
The Compounding List Of Reasons.
- We wanted more of our community to have the ability to grow food for their families.
- We recognized it was unattainable for much of our community to purchase land or growing space of their own.
- We wanted adults and children to understand that nutrient-dense food comes from plants rooted in soil that is full of life.
- We wanted to help people realize that food grows within natural systems that affect each other.
- We wanted to help curb health disparities by improving food access.
- The list goes on.
And then, we followed that ambition to the next right step.
Backed by the support of many community members with intentional and effective skills they were willing to offer, we created Restoring Gardens in 2024.
A passion for nutrition was paired with a passion for affordable food access in urban areas.
Click here to read about our Mission