Our Gardens

Located just north of Yellow Springs, Ohio, Heartbeat Learning Gardens serves the Springfield and Yellow Springs communities as both a working farm and a living classroom. Across these four acres, we grow vegetables, culinary herbs, fruit and nut trees, native plants, and pollinator gardens that demonstrate sustainable growing practices while providing fresh food for the community.

Vegetable Gardens

_{Heartbeat has been growing vegetables for our community for more than twenty years. Yet we remain small-scale, tending our soils mostly by hand, focusing on maintaining biodiverse ecologies in our gardens.}

_{Each year we tend 1.8 acres of land in annual vegetable production,rotating our crops and interspersing 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, Heartbeat, a certified Monarch Waystation dedicates portions of our gardens to diverse pollinator plantings, providing food and shelter throughout the growing season.}

Herb Gardens

_{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 beyond

Beyond the gardens, Heartbeat tends chickens, honeybees, wildlife habitat, and other working landscapes that support biodiversity and healthy ecosystems. Together, these spaces demonstrate how thoughtful stewardship strengthens both the land and the community.

Honey Bees

_{Heartbeat is 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.}