What happens in our Garden Club?

Backyard farming, meet social skills group!

Planting, taking care of seedlings, harvesting, processing? Check.

Learning which plants prefer which neighbors? Learning which weeds are actually helpful? Check!

Step one: we garden.

So it’s “Farmville”, then?

Sometimes it’s all happiness! But here’s a secret about gardening — it’s really hard.

Sometimes the weeds outpace the vegetables. Sometimes the vegetables get sick. Sometimes kids get sick of each other! That’s when our work gets real.

We have more than a decade of experience of raising produce. We help kids work through the frustrations of dealing with nature, with each other, and with themselves.

Your kid will learn how to replicate what we’re doing at home — even if you don’t have much space, experience, or fancy garden tools. (They’ll even get a gardening starter kit — gloves, equipment, and seeds.)

This gives your kids the knowledge, experience, and emotional control to fall in love with gardening for a lifetime.

Who are these ideal for?

This is ideal for all sorts of kids ages 5 & up — neurodiverse kids and neurotypical kids.

We have 3 different levels of staff support to choose from, ranging from 1:4 to 1:1.

Kids who struggle with emotional regulation, social skills, motor skills, or picky eating.

In short, kids who would benefit from understanding themselves better.

What times does it meet?

2 hours a week in spring, summer, and fall of every year. (See below for dates.)

How long are the sessions?

They meet once a week, for 10 weeks at a time each season.

Where do they meet?

From May through mid-October, we’ll meet at a community garden plot at Zumbro South Gardens. At the tail-ends of the growing season, we’ll meet at People of Hope.

SPRING SEASON: March 9 to May 22, 2026

In spring, we begin by meeting indoors. We’ll prepare the seedlings, plan the garden, start the compost pile, and read books and play games to understand gardening. When the ground thaws, we’ll go outside, and start the garden!

SUMMER SEASON: June 8 to August 21, 2026

In summer, we keep planting. We take care of the growing plants — pruning, treating diseases, and weeding. (Lots and lots of weeding.) We learn about bugs — which are good for the garden, and which aren’t. We also do things to stay cool. Look forward to sprinklers, water-balloon fights, and an epic slip-and-slide!

FALL SEASON: September 8 to November 16, 2026

Look forward to harvesting — lots of harvesting! And processing. And preparing the beds for winter.

We’ll learn how to store the produce for the winter, gather seeds for next year, and make some delicious snacks and meals with the food we’ve grown.