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A Chemical Free, Organic Space

Community Garden

A community garden within the burial ground has been home to a number of projects throughout the years.

Friends leaf
A quiet place

Local Residents Working Together

In addition to our many trees and shrubs, we are home to a Community Garden where local residents raise a variety of vegetables, fruit and flowers. In our Community Garden beehives are tended by neighborhood beekeepers. In addition, native milkweed on our land provides a way station for migrating Monarch butterflies.

close-up of monarch butterfly on flower
Monarch butterfly on the milkweed
beehives at Friends Southwestern Burial Ground
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Growing Flowers and Flax

A Cooperative Effort

The garden was initially set up as a kitchen garden for the resident caretakers. From there it has remained a chemical free, organic space that has preserved the soil for a variety of uses. Currently, the garden currently supports a cooperative effort geared towards growing flowers and flax. A volunteer who goes by the name Ask Nicely has been growing flax in order to process this plant material into a fabric shroud. This shroud will then ask as their death shroud that they will be wrapped in for their own burial. This project serves a practical function of creating a death shroud as well as acting as a catalyst to encourage conversations about death and preplanning within ourselves as well as within our communities.