On the north-most side of the Lexington Battle Green, beside the towering steeple of the First Parish in Lexington, rests a historic house built in 1794. In front sits the Lexington Interfaith Garden, a project beginning its 15th year. Led by Carla Fortmann, the owner of the house, the garden grows fresh produce for patrons of the nearby Lexington Food Pantry. On Saturday mornings, volunteers load carts with freshly grown vegetables, fruits and herbs, and walk the donations down a path to the pantry.
In 2009, the then-minister of Hancock United Church of Christ in Lexington, Dana Allen Walsh, had an idea to develop a program to combat hunger. The church had a relationship with the nearby food pantry and was among several faith organizations that sent volunteers to work there monthly. “We were really familiar with the distribution, the clientele, and how they struggled to have fresh produce there,” said Amy Swanson, a member of the church and garden volunteer. The minister proposed a giving garden and brought the idea to the Lexington Interfaith Clergy Association.
“It had a groundswell of support,” Swanson said. Ministers and rabbis approached their congregations, organized liaisons, developed task forces, and got to work scouting out a plot to grow their donations. When the group realized that four couples from First Parish had established their own giving garden right beside Fortmann’s personal garden, they knew it would be an ideal place to start.
“I was producing too much stuff. My kids were gone, and it was just Tom and I,” said Fortmann. “Carla wonderfully said, ‘Well, let’s try it,’ Swanson recounted, “and here we are, in our fifteenth season.”
Sustainable agricultural practices are essential to the garden’s culture and success. Alex Bartsch, a certified master beekeeper in town, brought bees to the garden, significantly increasing its produce output. “We saw a 50 to 70 percent increase in productivity,” Swanson said. Fortmann has attended three Colonial Williamsburg gardening conferences. She used to use Miracle Grow, which wasn’t good for the soil. At a conference, she learned not to use blue fertilizers and has promoted growth using green manures and fish emulsion. After a century-old maple tree split, the gardeners turned it into mulch, an effective weed suppressant.
Fortmann established her first asparagus bed in 1980. Because it had a life expectancy of 25 years, she planted a second. Despite the projection, both beds are still growing. When Swanson’s son was in high school, he volunteered at the garden, harvesting the asparagus. After the day’s cutting, he delivered the produce to the food pantry. When he returned to the garden that same day, he was shocked to notice so many asparagus spears he had missed. Fortmann walked over and reassured him that he had not missed those spears; instead, they had grown about two inches in the short time he had been away from the beds. In fact, Fortmann said, “In Western Massachusetts, they used to let the kids out of school to cut because it’d grow so fast, and you could cut two or three times a day.”
Lexington communities of faith have been linked for a long time. After Temple Isaiah formed in 1959, three Lexington churches—First Parish, Hancock, and Methodist—offered their spaces to hold services before the synagogue had a building of its own.
One liaison, Janet Lane of Follen Community Church, described the garden’s energy and the culture that keeps volunteers returning year after year. She’s met many people with different traditions and has never felt cultural dissonance or discomfort in the garden. “You wind up living your life in whatever lane you’re driving in, so I like that the garden connects people all across town.” Volunteers know that hunger cuts across a vast spectrum. The garden is a way to knit together communities and create lasting bonds.
Lexington Food Pantry opened in 1990. The garden grows produce dependent on the needs of the patrons. According to Swanson, the pantry used to serve a predominantly Asian population. The garden, accordingly, started growing bok choy, per the clients’ requests. Lexington Food Pantry coordinator Carolyn Wortman said the pantry’s non-Asian population has grown since the pandemic and Asian patrons are no longer the majority. In 2023, the average number of families visiting the pantry per week was 102, and the average number of individuals was 338. She said that the averages from 2024 are on the rise.
Swanson meticulously tracks the garden’s impact. Last season, 150 different volunteers contributed their time. Over the years, the garden has delivered 21,789 pounds of food to the pantry.
Despite challenges like the pandemic or intruders such as the 2023 woodchuck that ruined this year’s pumpkin plants, the group remains committed to their mission: to grow fresh produce for neighbors in need, promote and adopt sustainable gardening practices, nurture interfaith community, and revel in the joys of gardening with new friends and neighbors.