Meet the McMaster Community Garden

“This has always been a passion project. This whole thing has historical and emotional context.”

— Dr. Chad Harvey

The McMaster Community Garden originated in 2012 when Integrated Science students, Julianne Bagg and Emily Taylor, wrote a grant for a Teaching and Community Garden for their third year independent project under the advisement of Professors Chad Harvey and Kate Whalen.

They received a grant of $23,000 from Scott’s Canada to carry the project out. With that, the Integrated Science students and McMaster’s first community garden was built featuring two raised beds, gravel pathways and a black metal fence enclosure laced with the vines of Ontario grapes.

Another early key player in helping the garden to thrive was McMaster Alumnus, Adam Chiaravalle, who was “incredibly impassioned about food justice and the student experience,” according to Chad Harvey.

“Adam got so many things brought to campus in his short time here. He was all about student access to local, organic food. This probably couldn’t have happened without him.” Today, Adam’s impact is commemorated in our Native Bee Nesting Garden, which is now dedicated in his memory.

Over the years, the McMaster Community Garden has been a major support for food security on campus.

“It’s so important to make sure food banks have access to fresh produce,” says Olivia Rowan, garden co-coordinator with Jayneigh Hesler for the summer 2025 term.

Nearly 70 kg of produce is harvested from the garden during the growing season each year, which supports local food security services for the McMaster community.

“During the school year, the garden makes weekly donations to the on-campus food bank, the McMaster Food Collective Centre, to ensure all students can access nutritious, fresh produce,” says Thush Gnanamuttu, former co-coordinator of the 2024-2025 academic year.

This summer, while the yield is highest, produce will also go to an on-campus produce stand for students, ensuring that no food goes to waste.

Besides its uses as a food security resource, the garden was also originally designed to be teaching and learning resource.

“We called it the McMaster Teaching and Community Garden, teaching being the first word,” says Harvey, who used this space to teach concepts around plant and animal interactions.

More recently, Dr. Janet Pritchard, associate professor of Interdisciplinary Science, has broached the subject of the garden in one of her lectures.

“I mentioned the garden to my nutrition class as we were discussing food insecurity and environmental impact. Many students were interested,” she reports.

Harvey provides an array of examples of how the garden can be applied to different faculties, through the study of biology, nutrition, horticulture, interdisciplinary sciences, fine art, Indigenous studies and “let’s take a jump –– materials engineering,” he goes on. “It could even be used in business courses to study small-scale agribusiness.”

The garden certainly hasn’t lost its roots in education.

“We’ve been working with the sustainability department to get more students in for research,” shares Gnanamuttu, who was able to connect with first year SUSTAIN and INSPIRE courses, running tours of the garden and providing the option for students to use it for experiential learning. “It’s exciting to see how many people are interested in our work,” she follows.

“It brings people together, they learn from each other.”

— Gary Moscardini

As of the summer of 2025, the garden will be working in collaboration with the Student Wellness Centre.

“We plan to run some food-related programs right in the garden itself and incorporate more sustainable gardening practices with the existing cooking programs,” says Hesler.

Since its implementation, the Grounds team of Facility Services has been another steward of the space. In particular, Gary Moscardini, a gardener who tends to the section of campus where the garden lies, has cared for the space over the years.

Besides supporting food security on campus, Moscardini highlights the other ways in which the garden benefits the community. “It brings people together, they learn from each other. People get to meet, socialize,” said Moscardini.

Through the grounds team, many summer student employees have also had the opportunity to work in the garden.

“A lot of care went into the upkeep,” says Matthew McLennan, a student who worked on the garden during the summers of 2022-23 under Moscardini’s lead. “It was a very enriching experience, getting to be a part of the goals that drive the campus forward.”

Recently, an additional accessible garden space was built just behind the Burke Science Building, which should more than double the yield of previous years. Designed in collaboration with accessibility advocacy groups on campus, the expansion features raised garden beds of varying heights, wheelchair-friendly paths, lightweight gardening tools and more.

“There are so many health benefits to being outdoors. When volunteers come out after a shift in the garden, there’s an exponential increase in their moods. Everyone should be able to experience that,” says Rowan.

Thankfully, anyone can. In fact, the garden brings in more than 60 volunteers from across the McMaster community each year.

“Coming out of the pandemic, the garden was still there, it was still producing crops and now it’s getting this new highlight,” says Harvey, excited to see a new generation of students engaged with the garden each year, because to those who have had involvement with it, this garden is more than just a plot of crops.

“This has always been a passion project. This whole thing has historical and emotional context,” he continues.

Whether it is used for education, community or food justice, this garden has been connecting students, faculty and staff through engagement with the land for more than a decade. We hope that it continues to do so for many harvests to come.

Facility Services

Meet the McMaster Community Garden

“This has always been a passion project. This whole thing has historical and emotional context.”

“It brings people together, they learn from each other.”

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