For Everyone
All are welcome to drop by The Forge Garden. Possible activities include planting summer crops, building compost piles, spreading mulch, harvesting and seeding in the greenhouse. Come ready to work with sturdy shoes, a hat, sunscreen, a water bottle and clothes that can get dirty.
Affordable, Certified Organic produce is grown and sold in our ½ acre garden and on a sliding scale, donation-based. This means you pay what you can afford. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. The first hour of the weekly Friday farm stand is reserved for SCU students only.
We host a number of special events throughout the academic year such as the Fall Harvest Festival and the Sustainability Celebration & Champion Awards at the main campus garden, The Forge, and family-oriented, community events at our other urban gardens.
Nourish Nights were created to support the physical and mental health of our campus community while addressing food insecurity at SCU. Each week, a group of volunteer students, faculty, and staff prepares a plant-based meal using ingredients from the garden. The free meal is served to any students that stop by, and the garden is open as a gathering space for Broncos to reconnect.
Our workshops focus on urban agriculture skills, cooking and garden crafts. All workshops take place at The Forge Garden, 1051 Sherman St. Santa Clara, CA and are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted. Contact theforge@scu.edu with questions or ideas!
We host two plant sales annually, in the spring and fall. All starts are grown at The Forge Garden greenhouse and are certified organic. Plant selection includes a wide variety of open pollinated and hybrid annual vegetable seeds selected for the Santa Clara growing climate.
For Only SCU Students
Is your group looking to get outside, learn a new skill, and bond over worms? The Forge Garden hosts events all year round, from work parties, to educational talks, to cooking and craft events. Please contact us if your student organization would like to collaborate on an event at The Forge Garden.
The Garden Apprenticeship is designed to teach students urban agriculture skills and strengthen student leaders within the SCU community. All apprentices pick an area of interest to specialize in for the quarter, share knowledge with others during weekly and community workdays, lead student-focused workshops, and consistently learn and discuss agriculture topics as a team.
The Forge Garden Club is a student run club that organizes events and programs for SCU students at The Forge Garden. Come garden, cook, learn and make friends.
The Center for Sustainability's Garden Programs offers a 100-hour summer internship. Students will learn the hands on skills of growing food while building community and connecting to the land.
Santa Clara Valley was once known as "The Valley of Heart’s Delight" because it was the third largest fruit and nut producing region in the country. There are still hundreds of fruit trees in our community that often go unharvested. The Glean Team was created to harvest and redistribute fruit to on campus and off campus food pantries, and aims to honor the agricultural history of this region, address food insecurity, and reduce waste. We offer a glean team leader training at the beginning of each quarter.