Ecological Culture Initiative Ltd

The Good Ground Heritage Garden at St. Joseph Villa provides community members with the opportunity to learn hands-on organic gardening skills. Individual and group volunteers learn how to plant, cultivate, harvest, and preserve produce in a cooperative learning environment. The goal of the Good Ground Heritage Garden is to empower community members with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to produce their own homegrown organic vegetables. For more information, please contact [email protected]

The Good Ground Heritage Garden space is currently 60’ x 120’, and contains 6 hugelkultur beds made by our Organic Gardening students and volunteers. We are currently raising funds to help pay for our newly town-approved deer fence, as well as a new irrigation system, garden bed, and tools.

The delicious, vitamin-rich, fresh herbs and vegetables are harvested from the Good Ground Heritage Garden and donated to local food pantries in Hampton Bays. Organic, heirloom variety seeds are collected from the garden, processed, and made available to the public for free through the Good Ground Seed Library.

The Good Ground Heritage Garden provides an opportunity for folks to learn how to grow food and to also give back to the community by donating fresh, organic, locally grown produce to those in need.

Community service hours are available! Please contact ECI if you are interested, we’d love to see you in the garden!

You are what you eat, and the best way to know the quality of what you are eating is to base your consumption habits on where you live. ECI hosts four dinners a year based on the ancient calendar that guided our foodways: the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes, as well as Summer and Winter Solstices. We work with neighborhood food purveyors and culinary experts to provide healthy meals that are organic, sourced locally, and primarily vegan, because our own health is directly related to the health of our ecosystem.

A Seed Library in the Hampton Bays Public Library! Community members are able to procure and donate organic vegetable and native plant seeds for free as a public benefit. Establishing a seed library is an important step to develop a network of community based seed savers who create locally adapted plant varieties, increase biodiversity, and mitigate the loss of plant gene integrity due to the genetic engineering of commercially produced seeds and plants.

Envelopes containing seeds provide plant variety names and directions on germination, growing and harvesting. Anyone from the community is welcome to take a small amount of seeds to grow in their home garden or community garden and is encouraged to save seeds of their own to donate to the Seed Library for others to take. There is no fee for Seed Library usage, but an opportunity to donate funds toward the continuation of the program is provided (above).

A New Farmers Market on Main Street?

Have you heard the buzz? ECI is busy making plans to bring the Good Ground Farmers Market to Main Street of Hampton Bays!

The Good Ground Farmers Market will be held at 84 Montauk Highway (across from the HB Fire Dept) on Thursdays from 3 - 7 pm, starting May 23rd through August 29th!

The market will have all locally grown, caught, and hand-prepared products. Do all your shopping in one place while supporting local farmers, fishers, and crafters. After shopping, the Thursday evening concert series in the Good Ground Park is just a short walk away!