Thomas Jefferson Middle School Community Garden

Thomas Jefferson Middle School Community Garden This organic garden is a demonstration and education project for TJMS and the Arlington Food Assistance Center

This organic garden is a demonstration and education project for the TJMS, started as a Girl Scout Silver Award project by Cadette Troop 557, with a portion of the produce going to the Arlington Food Assistance Center (AFAC) to support the broader Arlington community through its "Plot Against Hunger" program. For more information email us at

We are supposed to get an inch of rain by tomorrow night, so we are cancelling the Tuesday night volunteer workday. Stay...
09/21/2026

We are supposed to get an inch of rain by tomorrow night, so we are cancelling the Tuesday night volunteer workday. Stay tuned for rescheduling announcements.

We know we will be tapering off soon as the days get cooler, but we have our fingers crossed for one ton donated by the ...
09/21/2026

We know we will be tapering off soon as the days get cooler, but we have our fingers crossed for one ton donated by the end of the season.

Tomato hornworm with beneficial parasitic wasp cocoons, found in the garden at today’s workday.
09/19/2026

Tomato hornworm with beneficial parasitic wasp cocoons, found in the garden at today’s workday.

Diligent farmers’ reward: orange watermelon at the end of garden club.
09/18/2026

Diligent farmers’ reward: orange watermelon at the end of garden club.

09/18/2026

Tiptoeing through the tomatoes before Garden Club. (Or trying to, how’d they grow this much in one week?)

Join us for the next thirty minutes— the weather is gorgeous and the beans are delicious.
09/15/2026

Join us for the next thirty minutes— the weather is gorgeous and the beans are delicious.

We will be in the garden harvesting produce to donate to AFAC 💚 tonight from 6:30-7:30. Join us, the weather is amazing!
09/15/2026

We will be in the garden harvesting produce to donate to AFAC 💚 tonight from 6:30-7:30. Join us, the weather is amazing!

09/13/2026

Somehow the camera stayed in the pocket all workday, except for this attempt to document taming the tomato jungle. Early in the season, we surgically pruned these tomatoes to keep them airy and open, and picked some of the biggest tomatoes I’ve ever seen growing on a plant. Then the spider mites hit, we sprayed them down with fish/sesame oil, and put up shade cloth to prevent leaf burn. The spider mites disappeared, but the plants got leggy fast in the shade. (Due to vacation schedules, the cloth stayed up a bit too long.) Then when we took down the shade cloth, the plants exploded into bushy regrowth within a week or two. Which is great! But suddenly we had to figure out how to open them back up a bit without taking out too many leaves or baby tomatoes. It’s going to take a while longer for us to finish, starting with the remaining yellowing or brown leaves, leaves too close to the ground, branches that are so tangled from not being tied up fast enough that they grew into a corkscrew. Retying where possible to open up the inside of the plant without cutting too much. Looking at the first attempt, and realizing that pruning tomatoes is a little like cutting your own bangs, and you probably went a little too short, but you’ve still got a dozen and a half more to practice on, so you might get it perfect before you’re done. See you back in the garden Tuesday evening 6:30-7:30, and you can learn how to prune tomatoes, too.

We got ZERO pictures of the first Garden Club of the school year, but we did manage to snap a photo of the FORTY-TWO pou...
09/12/2026

We got ZERO pictures of the first Garden Club of the school year, but we did manage to snap a photo of the FORTY-TWO pounds of produce they picked this afternoon. Happy back to school and garden!

Thanks to Tuesday’s volunteers we sent 64 pounds of produce to AFAC midweek. We will be back in the garden Saturday 9-11...
09/11/2026

Thanks to Tuesday’s volunteers we sent 64 pounds of produce to AFAC midweek. We will be back in the garden Saturday 9-11 AM to harvest, fertilize, prune, and repair our overwhelmed trellises that are sagging under the weight of success this season.

Address

125 S. Old Glebe Road
Arlington, VA
22204

Opening Hours

2:30pm - 4pm

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