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
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...
A tour of our sugar snap peas and strawberries, ou...
What's Happening in the Garden?
Get TJMS Community Garden News and Updates
Join Us in the Garden
Workdays on Saturdays 9-11AM
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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138 pounds! Our biggest single day donation this year. This takes us to 1081 pounds donated to AFAC 💚
Watermelon, tromboncino squash, corn, and more
So much it didn’t fit in the back and overflowed into the back seat!
Our MOUNTAIN of tromboncino squash. In another few weeks we may be filming a horror movie, The Squash that Ate the Capital. What’s that, you say? We’re in Arlington, not DC? Just wait a few weeks.
We performed emergency surgery on the bean tunnels today, because they’d grown so large we couldn’t get inside to harvest them. We are expecting about 1/3 of the vines to die back from being cut across the top, but we are hoping our harvest will go up due to increased sunshine and access.
Harvested more corn.
We were thrilled that Jason and Andreas took their last week before heading back to college to come help out in the garden. We love when our former students come back to visit us. ... See MoreSee Less
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Forty pounds harvested today takes us to 943 pounds total donated to AFAC 💚 (and that was before we got to the beans!)— we will almost certainly cross 1000 pounds by next week. ... See MoreSee Less
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Join us in the garden Saturday 9-11 for #volunteer #workday ... See MoreSee Less
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The tromboncino squash is staging a stealth attack on our pepper trellis via the shade cloth. Next year we will definitely give it more space to spread out. ... See MoreSee Less
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