UMass Permaculture Garden

A unique and cutting-edge sustainability program, UMass Permaculture provides empowering hands-on education and leadership training, community engagement, and fresh, local, organic produce to the UMass campus.

Founded in 2010, the initiative builds and maintains five highly productive, highly educational edible gardens right on campus. The gardens are designed using permaculture principles and are installed by students, staff, and volunteers. ​

The gardens are located outside each of our 4 Dining Commons, and outside the Chancellor’s home on campus.

Permaculture is a design system for creating ecological and edible landscapes, low-impact buildings, and sustainable communities and economies. It is based on thoughtful observation of the patterns and relationships found in nature, and provides a set of ethics and principles to help us transition our communities, campuses, and culture beyond sustainability and toward regeneration and resilience.