The TJMS Community Garden 2026 Season is Under Way.
The TJMS Community Garden has been a Plot Against Hunger participant for over a decade, donating produce to AFAC and other local food pantries. The Jefferson Community Garden is the largest school garden in Arlington, and we are taking our community responsibilities seriously. But more than that, we are working to become a hub for joyful community and learning. Have you ever thought of starting your own garden, but you feel a little overwhelmed? Volunteering with our experienced gardeners is a great way to learn more about starting a garden, managing pests and diseases, and how to plan for seasonal harvests. A sunny Saturday morning in the garden is a great family activity, and it's the perfect place to meet friends to socialize while volunteering and getting a bit of fresh air and exercise.
Bring Friends or Family and Join Us in the Garden:
We would love you to join us in the garden. We have regular garden workdays every week from 9-11 AM Saturday mornings. Not quite ready to start gardening today? Sign up for our newsletter and we'll send you weekly updates about our workday plans, and pictures of what we're doing in the garden.
Stay tuned to our Facebook page for late-breaking schedule updates and weather cancellations.
Garden videos:
Thomas Jefferson Middle School Community Garden
This organic garden is a demonstration and education project for TJMS and the Arlington Food Assistance Center
Somehow the camera stayed in the pocket all workda...
Pollinators hard at work: every year we have a few...
The last day of Garden Club, with the vines being ...
Bees on sunflowers at the volunteer garden workday...
Milkweed pods, fluff and milkweed bugs in the poll...
We are planning a hugelkultur mound, and collectin...
What's Happening in the Garden?
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Workdays on Saturdays 9-11AM
Somehow the camera stayed in the pocket all workday, except for this attempt to document taming the tomato jungle. Early in the season, we surgically pruned these tomatoes to keep them airy and open, and picked some of the biggest tomatoes I’ve ever seen growing on a plant. Then the spider mites hit, we sprayed them down with fish/sesame oil, and put up shade cloth to prevent leaf burn. The spider mites disappeared, but the plants got leggy fast in the shade. (Due to vacation schedules, the cloth stayed up a bit too long.) Then when we took down the shade cloth, the plants exploded into bushy regrowth within a week or two. Which is great! But suddenly we had to figure out how to open them back up a bit without taking out too many leaves or baby tomatoes. It’s going to take a while longer for us to finish, starting with the remaining yellowing or brown leaves, leaves too close to the ground, branches that are so tangled from not being tied up fast enough that they grew into a corkscrew. Retying where possible to open up the inside of the plant without cutting too much. Looking at the first attempt, and realizing that pruning tomatoes is a little like cutting your own bangs, and you probably went a little too short, but you’ve still got a dozen and a half more to practice on, so you might get it perfect before you’re done. #volunteer #workday See you back in the garden Tuesday evening 6:30-7:30, and you can learn how to prune tomatoes, too.
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Somehow the camera stayed in the pocket all workday, except for this attempt to document taming the tomato jungle. Early in the season, we surgically pruned these tomatoes to keep them airy and open, and picked some of the biggest tomatoes I’ve ever seen growing on a plant. Then the spider mites hit, we sprayed them down with fish/sesame oil, and put up shade cloth to prevent leaf burn. The spider mites disappeared, but the plants got leggy fast in the shade. (Due to vacation schedules, the cloth stayed up a bit too long.) Then when we took down the shade cloth, the plants exploded into bushy regrowth within a week or two. Which is great! But suddenly we had to figure out how to open them back up a bit without taking out too many leaves or baby tomatoes. It’s going to take a while longer for us to finish, starting with the remaining yellowing or brown leaves, leaves too close to the ground, branches that are so tangled from not being tied up fast enough that they grew into a corkscrew. Retying where possible to open up the inside of the plant without cutting too much. Looking at the first attempt, and realizing that pruning tomatoes is a little like cutting your own bangs, and you probably went a little too short, but you’ve still got a dozen and a half more to practice on, so you might get it perfect before you’re done. #volunteer #workday See you back in the garden Tuesday evening 6:30-7:30, and you can learn how to prune tomatoes, too. ... See MoreSee Less
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We got ZERO pictures of the first Garden Club of the school year, but we did manage to snap a photo of the FORTY-TWO pounds of produce they picked this afternoon. Happy back to school and garden! ... See MoreSee Less
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Thanks to Tuesday’s volunteers we sent 64 pounds of produce to AFAC midweek. We will be back in the garden Saturday 9-11 AM to harvest, fertilize, prune, and repair our overwhelmed trellises that are sagging under the weight of success this season. ... See MoreSee Less
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Join us tonight at 6:30 for a midweek harvest. ... See MoreSee Less
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Orange is the new top-yielding year-to-date-- we just hit 1404 pounds today, a record for early September donations to AFAC 💚 Here's a graph showing our donations over the years. Dark blue is 2023, our previous leader, and orange is 2026. I'm pretty sure the difference this year is our tromboncino squash, which are still in full production. They replaced our traditional zucchini and summer squash, which are usually dead from squash vine borer by September. ... See MoreSee Less
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Remembering “Farmer John”, John Adair, with a toast of hibiscus tea and zinnia, sunflower, okra blossom, herbs, and native pollinator blossoms from the garden. (And then sending 170 pounds of vegetables off to AFAC 💚 in his honor, our biggest single donation *ever*, which somehow feels appropriate to the day.) ... See MoreSee Less
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We were saddened to learn that "Farmer John," John Adair, passed away this week after an extended illness. He was one of the garden's founders, and we wouldn't be here without him. He had a tremendous impact on multiple generations of TJ students, far beyond his own tenure at the garden.
In lieu of flowers, his family has asked that you use those funds to make a donation to Arlington Food Assistance Center (AFAC) (afac.org/donate-funds/) or Animal Welfare League of Arlington (www.awla.org/donate/other-ways-to-give/), two organizations he felt passionately about.
As the original caption for this 2011 photo said, he was "outstanding in his field," and we were lucky to stand in it with him.Outstanding in his field ... See MoreSee Less
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Join us in the garden for our #volunteer #workday from 9-11AM Saturday morning. ... See MoreSee Less
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Join us in the garden this Saturday 9-11AM for our #volunteer #workday. ... See MoreSee Less
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