Lehigh Community Garden

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The Lehigh Community Garden is located on Goodman Campus. Community gardens are multifaceted resources that help communities stimulate development and social interaction, produce nutritious foods, beautify neighborhoods, and preserve green space. Participation in the garden is  open to University faculty, staff, students, and alumni. Annual/seasonal plot leases allow participants to  grow produce in their own plot and it gives them access to shared garden resources and growing spaces.

If you would like more information about participating in the Lehigh Community Garden, please contact sustainability@lehigh.edu.

About Lehigh Community Garden

Location

The Lehigh Community Garden is located near Transportation Services on Goodman Campus. 

View the garden on Google Maps. 

Plot Pricing

Annual plot fees are $30/year for students and $40/year for all others.

Plot Layout
  • Plot 3 is a Pollinator garden

  • Plot 14 is a collective bed for herbs

  • Plots 1-42 (except Plot 3 and 14) are rentable beds of varying sizes between 10’x12’ & 14’x16’  

  • The remaining beds are tended to by garden members for collective use (e.g. berries)

  • The yellow square is a Native Plants garden

Amenities
  • Newly expanded compost center

  • Newly established “Mulch Drop Zone” (leaf mulch provided at no cost)

  • Two storage sheds 

    • one for general use by members for storage of common-use garden tools and supplies

    • one for storage of the garden’s power equipment (e.g. tiller, mower, trimmer, fuel and related supplies used by garden’s Mowing and Trimming Team)

  • Native plants area 

  • Solar powered water system

Gardener Expectations

Every gardener will participate in one of the garden’s teams, listed below. Through team membership and active participation, each gardener will spend two (2) hours per month during the growing season performing work in the garden unrelated to their own plot(s). 

  • ​Shed Maintenance

  • Fence Maintenance

  • Mowing and Trimming

  • Composting

  • Grounds Maintenance

COVID-19 Expectations

As a source of food, peace of mind, and social connectedness, the Lehigh Community Garden is valuable to our health. Our continued access to the garden depends on each of us following these expectations. Lehigh has agreed to keep the Lehigh Community Garden open to gardeners on the condition that we follow a number of safety practices to protect against COVID-19. 

Leadership and Support
  • The Office of Sustainability manages the garden's operations.

  • A Steering Committee oversees day-to-day operations. The committee is made up of members who lead the various teams and identify garden priorities and projects.

  • BrightView Landscaping assists with mowing each season and provides leaf mulch.

  • ABM assisted with the water pump.

  • Diefenderfer electricians did the electrical work needed to install the solar panels.

Student Project Opportunities

Do you have a project idea that you would like to work on at the Lehigh Community Garden?  We'd love to hear from you! Contact us at sustainability@lehigh.edu to discuss it further.

We also have a some project ideas (see below).  Let us know if you are interested in working on any of them!

1) The Lehigh Community Garden has a rodent problem.  Help the garden come up with an organic way to deter them!  Also, develop a design for fencing that would help keep them from digging under and climbing over the existing fence and getting into the garden.

2) The Lehigh Community Garden has a complicated watering delivery system.  Help determine a better way to set up the system so that it easily reaches all of the plots.

3) Are you interested in landscaping?  The Lehigh Community Garden is looking for someone to generate a few landscaping plans/options for a particular part of the garden.

4) The Lehigh Community Garden has an extra steel frame for a solar array.  Determine a way to remove the steel from the ground so that we can sell it.