The Gardens

Located just north of Yellow Springs, Ohio, Heartbeat Learning Gardens serves the Yellow Springfield community as both a working farm and a living classroom. Across four acres, we grow food and herbal medicines, cultivate pollinator habitat, care for honeybees and chickens, and steward fruit and nut trees alongside protected wildlife areas.

Together, these spaces provide food, learning opportunities, and habitat while nurturing the long-term health of the land and community.

Vegetable Gardens

_{We have been growing vegetables for our community for twenty years. We remain small-scale, tending our soils mostly by hand, maintaining biodiverse ecologies in our gardens.}

_{We tend 1.8 acres of land in annual vegetable production each year. We rotate our crops and intersperse the beds with perennial strips that include pollinator plants, fruit and nut trees, and vital wild “weeds”.}

Pollinator Gardens

_{Pollinators play an essential role in healthy ecosystems and food production, yet many species have lost habitat due to development and large-scale agriculture. Each year, we dedicate portions of our gardens to diverse pollinator plantings that provide food and shelter throughout the growing season.}

_{Heartbeat is a certified Monarch Waystation and home to four honeybee colonies: Soleil, Penelope Pearl, Mare Aurea, and Rosa Mia. These colonies trace their lineage to a wild hive that lived in a hollow tree in Springfield for nearly twenty years.}

_{Through pollinator habitat and chemical-free, bee-centric beekeeping practices, we work to support healthy pollinator populations and the biodiversity upon which our gardens depend.}

Herbal Medicine

_{In addition to localizing food, we seek to localize our medicine. Remembering what our ancestors knew about how to empower health and healing with the use of plants. Herbal Medicine is still the most widely used form of healthcare across the world.}

_{We teach hands-on herb-crafting in the gardens, and support community members in maintaining their own herbal kitchen gardens and seasonal stocking their apothecaries.ve been losing vital habitat. Each year, we designate a section of our gardens to diverse pollinator plants.}