Community Garden
Do you enjoy gardening or would you like to learn? Volunteer in our vegetable garden!
BUas Community Garden
The Community Garden is a 170m² organic edible garden on our campus where students, staff, and local residents collaborate on local food production. The garden grows herbs, edible flowers, vegetables, and fruits that are harvested directly for BUas' training restaurant Sibelicious: from sage and rosemary to physalis and Japanese wineberry. Harvested in the afternoon, the produce is served that same evening.
Our philosophy is simple: we move with nature. This means minimal watering, chemical-free gardening, and we accept that some crops thrive better than others. After all, we depend on the weather and the animal inhabitants of our campus. Swiss chard, chives, strawberries, and pumpkins always do well in our garden. Depending on the weather, we also grow kale, courgette, sweet potato, cherry tomatoes, and much, much more. Nature determines what grows, and we are perfectly happy with that.
The Community Garden is maintained by the Gardening Club. Anyone can become a member of the Club. No experience is needed, we are here to learn from one another. Every other week we organise a garden session of about an hour where we get our hands dirty together. Via our WhatsApp group you can keep track of when the sessions take place. Whether you are a student, a staff member, or a local resident; everyone is welcome.
Aside from being a place to garden, the garden also functions as a living lab for student projects. Students have, for example, developed an immersive audio tour and conducted a feasibility study for a future food forest. The Community Garden is, therefore, not just a place for food production, but also for experimentation, learning, and research.
Our garden is gradually being developed into a food forest. Research carried out by students yielded positive results. This means that by the end of 2026 we will be taking the first steps towards a Community Forest: a food forest on our campus. This educational space will demonstrate how urban food production can be done differently, provide room for student projects, and serve as an outdoor classroom. The current Community Garden with its annual crops will form the heart of this larger whole.
The garden already plays a role in various campus activities. We took part in the Velt Ecotuindagen and participate annually in the BUas De-Stress Fest. The garden is a meeting place where sustainability becomes tangible and where the campus community comes together around food, nature, and a shared care for our surroundings.
- Gardening wíth nature
-
Our philosophy is simple: we move with nature. This means minimal watering, chemical-free gardening, and we accept that some crops thrive better than others. After all, we depend on the weather and the animal inhabitants of our campus. Swiss chard, chives, strawberries, and pumpkins always do well in our garden. Depending on the weather, we also grow kale, courgette, sweet potato, cherry tomatoes, and much, much more. Nature determines what grows, and we are perfectly happy with that.
- Gardening Club
-
The Community Garden is maintained by the Gardening Club. Anyone can become a member of the Club. No experience is needed, we are here to learn from one another. Every other week we organise a garden session of about an hour where we get our hands dirty together. Via our WhatsApp group you can keep track of when the sessions take place. Whether you are a student, a staff member, or a local resident; everyone is welcome.
- Education and research
-
Aside from being a place to garden, the garden also functions as a living lab for student projects. Students have, for example, developed an immersive audio tour and conducted a feasibility study for a future food forest. The Community Garden is, therefore, not just a place for food production, but also for experimentation, learning, and research.
- From garden to food forest
-
Our garden is gradually being developed into a food forest. Research carried out by students yielded positive results. This means that by the end of 2026 we will be taking the first steps towards a Community Forest: a food forest on our campus. This educational space will demonstrate how urban food production can be done differently, provide room for student projects, and serve as an outdoor classroom. The current Community Garden with its annual crops will form the heart of this larger whole.
- Events
-
The garden already plays a role in various campus activities. We took part in the Velt Ecotuindagen and participate annually in the BUas De-Stress Fest. The garden is a meeting place where sustainability becomes tangible and where the campus community comes together around food, nature, and a shared care for our surroundings.
Want to work in the garden?
Would you like to help out in our Community Garden? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you!