Food is Free Project

Food is Free Project Teaching you and your neighbors to grow food together and share it. Onward and upward! It’s time we take back our food and meet our neighbors.

Invite your friends to join the mission. Transform your own neighborhood by planting a community garden in your front yard. The Food is Free Project grows community and food, while helping gain independence from a broken agricultural system. The open-source project launched in January of 2012 as we lined our street in Austin, TX with front yard gardens. We have grown to become a worldwide communi

ty of people growing and sharing food in creative ways, learning from each other along the way. We have built gardens for free, using salvaged resources that would otherwise head to the landfill. Using low maintenance gardens such as wicking bed gardens reduces watering to every 2-4 weeks. This simple tool introduces people to a very easy method of growing organic food with very little work. A wide variety of fruits and vegetables along the block promote neighbors to interact and connect, strengthening our communities while empowering each other to grow food and share it. The Food is Free Project started with one front yard garden. The garden sparked conversations and a bigger vision of what was possible. Less than 3 months later, the majority of neighbors on our pilot block hosted front yard community gardens. We are documenting the process as we continue to expand, sharing our mistakes and successes, making the information open-source and available to anyone around the globe. Start a Food is Free Project in your town. It all starts with that first garden! More and more people are recognizing the importance of local food and supporting our communities. Food is Free provides a platform for community interaction that opens doors to further collaboration and connection. Imagine driving down your street, where the majority of homes host a front yard community garden, neighbors come together for potlucks, establish tool-sharing and community composting programs while creating safer, more beautiful neighborhoods. We are creating models for how to grow food in unused public spaces that provide opportunities for people to experience fresh, healthy, organic food, and the power of community when we come together for a cause that’s greater than ourselves. Onward and Upward,

John and The Folks at Food is Free Project

Join the front yard regenerative gardening revolution!
01/18/2026

Join the front yard regenerative gardening revolution!

Permaculture instructor Andrew Millison walks around his neighborhood pointing out 7 ways that you can get started with the Front Yard Farming revolution..Or...

Medicine__is__Free__Project-----For information on a long list of medicine plants (many of which grow prolifically in th...
01/15/2026

Medicine__is__Free__Project

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For information on a long list of medicine plants (many of which grow prolifically in the wild and/or are easy to grow and you can access for free) that can be used to make medicinal teas, check out the article linked below:

https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/medicinal-teas

26 Reasons Why Starting or Expanding a Regenerative Garden in 2026 is the most important thing each of us can do this ye...
01/02/2026

26 Reasons Why Starting or Expanding a Regenerative Garden in 2026 is the most important thing each of us can do this year to make this world a better place!

Lets explore the long list of reasons why starting/expanding a garden is the most important thing you can possibly do in 2026

Our ancestors that saw this world through an animate worldview considered humans as possessing unique gifts that enriche...
12/02/2025

Our ancestors that saw this world through an animate worldview considered humans as possessing unique gifts that enriched the beauty and health of the earth, and they considered putting those gifts to good use for the benefit of all beings as a sacred duty. Some of them left behind a measurable and quantifiable legacy of increased biodiversity, soil depth, beauty and self-perpetuating Free food production systems that we still benefit from today (centuries to millennia later).

The pictures below show two ancient food forests in Canada (the first over 7000 years old in northern bc and another over 150 years old on the coast), one in Morroco (over 2000 years old) and one in Ecuador (over a thousand years old). There are dozens more examples of ancient food forests all over the globe in almost every climate zone. All of them still produce food for humans, wildlife, build soil, clean water, provide spiritual nourishment and beauty today. The Yumbo people in what is now called Ecuador achieved similar increased biodiversity and permanent food forest engineering persisting for millennia, their neighbors in the Amazon jungle acheived similar amazing ecosystem scale food forest design and also created the Terra Preta soil which still benefits farmers today.

Human beings are not innately ecologically degenerative.

While increasing our population even more may not be wise, our great numbers could translate into great quantities of food forests, regenerative ocean gardens and regenerative home gardens that increase beauty, biodiversity, stabilizing erratic weather, cleaning water and leaving a legacy of free food abundance and spiritual nourishment for future generations.

I do not advocate lessening our impact on the natural world. I think we should increase our impact on the more than human world ten fold.

The same human hands that destroy can create wondrous things … humanity can be a balm for the living earth instead of a plague. It requires a shift in perspective and abandoning anthropocentric and degenerative belief systems and instead our refocusing our creative gifts locally to our watersheds and bio regions. It requires a handful of seeds and a heart full of faith and it necessitates embracing an animate worldview that promotes reciprocity based relationships with our fellow beings.

(Check the links in the photo captions for more info on the food forests mentioned)

10/30/2025

There’s nothing I love more than growing from seed. Watching something so tiny turn into something full of life never stops amazing me. Every time a seed germinates, it feels like a small miracle, proof that nature still has a kind of quiet magic that never fades.

It doesn’t matter how many times I do it, that first bit of green pushing through the soil always makes me stop and stare. It’s simple, but it’s everything I love about gardening.

Art by — go check out her shop at www.laberiafarm.com/collections/prints if you love cosy, autumn-inspired illustrations.

Free food is rains from the sky for those that train their eyes to see it for what it is! Gathering wild nuts and acorns...
10/09/2025

Free food is rains from the sky for those that train their eyes to see it for what it is!

Gathering wild nuts and acorns to make into delicious food a great way to embrace the thanksgiving season :)

Check out the links in the post below for in depth info on identification, nutrition, foraging techniques, processing and recipes ideas.

Rebellion against the global food corporations, its not like in the movies..
08/30/2025

Rebellion against the global food corporations, its not like in the movies..

08/10/2025

Happy National Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day to all who celebrate! If your garden is trying to outgrow you, why not share the bounty, and spread the harvest (and maybe a little friendly mischief) around the community.

08/10/2025

Your overflowing fruit trees can fight food insecurity!

🌳 Book our complimentary harvest service, and we'll transform your backyard bounty into nourishing meals for New Mexican families.

It's easy, free, and makes a huge impact. Learn more: fifabq.org/book-online

Food is Free Project is open source and worldwide, growing and sharing food. Onward and upward! 🌱💚
08/05/2025

Food is Free Project is open source and worldwide, growing and sharing food. Onward and upward! 🌱💚

Who is Food is Free Albuquerque?

We:
👯Support Fresh Food Access
💚Believe Fresh Food is a Human Right
🍎Glean Abundance throughout Central NM from strong local producers - home and land owners!
✨Distribute via 100+ Community Partners
🌱Share 1,000s of Seeds and Plant Starts Annually
🍑Have Shared 100,000+ Lbs of Fresh Food since 2014

➡➡Learn More, Support our Mission, Book a Harvest at:
www.fifabq.org

Address

5608 Joe Sayers Avenue
Austin, TX
78756

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