Sustainability Sourcing Materials

Minimizing our carbon footprint is a major goal for the Garden. Our efforts to be more sustainable are affected by a variety of challenges such as the availability of materials and technologies. We work to counter those challenges by seeking alternatives that allow us to reduce our overall impact.

Minimizing Plastic Use
Plastics present one of the biggest challenges to our Garden’s sustainability efforts. We have worked diligently to remove as much single-use plastic from the Garden as possible. While we cannot completely remove all plastic from our operations, we strive to reuse and recycle as much as we can. The Garden works alongside local garden clubs to minimize plastic use by donating plastic pots to be used for plant sales and other activities. Our horticulture team regularly tests out new products, such as the tree diapers, an alternative to gator bags, that the outreach team hopes to use to water trees in the Worcester area and plastic-less bands for planting flowers. Learn more about the challenges of plastics.

Fresh, Local Food in the Café
The Garden’s onsite café, the Farmer and The Fork, is managed by Peppers Artful Events, a Northborough-based catering company with a commitment to sustainability. Peppers incorporates a variety of environmentally friendly practices into their operations, such as using high-efficiency kitchen equipment, composting kitchen scraps, and opting for bio-based materials for flatware and packaging. They also source most of their meat and produce from farms within 100 miles of the café. Recently, Peppers added a Freight Farm, a hydroponic farm built within a freight container, to their operations. Located at their Northborough headquarters, the Freight Farm allows Peppers to serve locally-grown produce to Garden visitors year-round! 

Each day, the Garden continues to make strides toward becoming more sustainable. Click here to learn about our Sustainable Initiatives.