Would you like to rent a bed in one of our community gardens this year? We have three beautiful garden sites: Mercer St., Ledyard St., and McDonald Park. Beds are $0-20 each (sliding scale fee) for the entire year, and scholarships are available.
2026 signups are now open! After reading through the rules below, you can register HERE
Guidelines for using community garden beds at FRESH
- This is an organic garden and we only allow organic (or all natural) fertilizers and pest control. Ask us if you’re not sure if something fits.
- Gardens are used by many people for different reasons. They are painted to show who and how to use them.
- RED beds are rented as community garden beds to families. You may only harvest from your OWN red bed.
- BLUE beds are FRESH program beds. You may not harvest from blue beds.
- GREEN beds are public snack beds. You are allowed to harvest from green beds.
- Beds must be cleaned out by May 30.
- Beds must be planted by June 7th, or they will be considered unwanted/abandoned.
- Beds must be kept free from invasive weeds that impact neighboring beds. If your bed becomes so overgrown that we need to weed it, we will consider it abandoned.
- Plants must be kept at a reasonable size, and not shade neighboring beds or encroach on the pathways.
- Beds must be tended to and watered AT LEAST once a week through the growing season. If you can not do this, you must arrange for friends or family to take over, or give up your bed.
Rules and Regulations for the Whole Urban Farm
Volunteering: There are lots of opportunities available to help with care and improvement of the Garden. Check out our home page and social media pages to learn more!
Interaction with others’ beds: Please be respectful of other gardeners and don’t interact with others’ beds without permission. We encourage all the gardeners to get to know each other and help each other out when needed.
Use of tools, watering system: Unless otherwise labeled, all tools in the shed are available for use. Please return them in the same condition (or cleaner) as you found them. Please make sure that the water is turned off at the shed and the spigots.
Assignment of Garden Beds
Fee per Bed: $0-20 (sliding scale) per bed per year. Scholarships are available.
Tier-System for New Gardeners & Waiting List:
i. New London residents living within 1 mile of Garden
ii. New London residents in general
iii. Non-New London residents
Garden Leadership
Relationship with FRESH: FRESH New London is the license holder for the FRESH Community Garden with the city of New London. One of FRESH’s programs is to support community garden projects, as well as doing other food-related projects. FRESH is one of the founding members of the New London County Community Gardens group. Along with community garden beds at the FRESH Community Garden, there are many FRESH Education Beds at this site, gardened by New London students.
All FRESH events are free and open to the Public!
Violation of Rules: If any rules and regulations of the Garden are violated by a Gardener, a staff will notify the Gardener of the violation. A specific amount of time needed to fix the problem will be agreed upon. If the problem isn’t corrected or if a FRESH staff member is not contacted within that time, the Gardener will forfeit their bed(s).