Simple Gifts
Community Garden
Garden updates
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Open House & Native Plant Sale Sat., April 18th – Come One, Come all!
Our biggest event of the year! Since the grand opening of Simple Gifts Community Garden at our new location on Tingen Road, both our gardening community and our garden are thriving! We grow a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and herbs. We’ve built everything using sustainable and organic practices, mostly using people power and amending the soil with our own compost and organic treatments when needed. Most of the harvest is donated to local food banks, and last year we donated 4,871 pounds of fresh, organic produce. This fresh, organic food is more nutritious than the processed foods that are…
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A Day for Potting
There was a chilly north wind this morning, but our intrepid team successfully transplanted tomato and eggplant bare-root seedlings into larger pots, getting them ready for our upcoming summer-season plantings. Larry has been nurturing these seedlings for us and will now steward their continued growth in new pots until we are ready to plant them later this spring. Due to some possible intrusion by invasive Japanese stilt grass seeds, each plant was carefully washed before…
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Saturday Garden Starts at a Very Civilized 9 AM this Weekend
Garden Hours Sat., Mar. 28th: 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM. Weather: Sunny, 45-50 degrees, wind 14 mph from the north We are well into our first of three seasons for the 2026 garden year, and things are looking pretty darned good! For those keeping score at home, this is our fourth year to garden at our new home on Tingen Road. Here is what it looked like as we were just getting started in 2023…
Volunteer opportunities
In addition to our garden work on scheduled garden workdays, including soil prep, planting, watering, weeding etc., there are other important supporting tasks that make the garden go. See some examples below. If you would like to sign up to help with any of these on particular dates, please go to our sign-up sheet by clicking the button below. Many hands make light work!
Compost Turning
Expired Produce Pickup
Pollinator plant wish list
Our vision
- Living example of sustainable local food production
- Learning center for gardening and natural resource conservation
- Abundant, high-quality organic produce for those in need
- Inspiration and inclusive engagement of the Apex area community
- Youth motivated to help others and the environment
Core values
- Welcome all people to participate
- Garden organically
- Feed the food-insecure via local food banks
- Educate about sustainability and conservation
- Support pollinators and the ecosystem
What we do
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Feed the Hungry
Collective effort to bring fresh organic produce to local food banks
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Build Inclusive Community
Working, digging, sweating, and laughing together . . . all are welcome!
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Encourage Community Service
Youth groups, teen service hours, community service hours, corporate volunteers
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Educate about Sustainability
Learn by doing – we all learn together and share the knowledge freely
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Support Nature
Using sustainable practices, including organic gardening, diverse pollinator beds, and support for native plants and wildlife
Current garden hours
- Saturdays, 8:00 AM – 12:00 PM
- Tuesdays, 5:00 – 7:00 PM (starting Mar. 10th)
Duty roster
| Location | When | Summary | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 14, 2026 | Produce delivery – Anne | ||
| April 14, 2026 | Compost WWCM – Cindy | ||
| April 14, 2026 | Leader – Nick | ||
| April 18, 2026 | Produce pickup – Patti A. | ||
| April 18, 2026 | Lowes Foods – Jill |
