Garden on Wheels

A Minnesota master gardener spreads joy in her neighborhood through a garden cart.

STORY JOSIE SMITH
PHOTOS TRACY WALSH

Used cupboard scraps. Crib ends. The music shelf from an old piano. Parts from a 1950s freezer crate. These are just some of the repurposed bits and pieces Jamie Miller curated to create her charming Giving Garden Cart, a sort of Little Free Library for her homegrown food and flowers.

She added wheels, rolled it to the end of her driveway and started sharing the gifts of her garden: sunflowers, sweet peas, cucumbers, zinnias, herbs and more.

“I think we ended up with about 75 bouquets [last summer] and over 100 pounds of beans, kale, peas and tomatoes, just giving them out to anybody who came by,” she says.

Her Maple Grove, Minn., neighbors find an assortment of colorful tulips, blooming daffodils, wonderfully scented lilacs and vegetables of every kind tucked into jars and apple crates on the cart. Small gestures of kindness ripple far and fast—Jamie loves hearing from neighbors, who have now become friends, about how her bouquets have made much-loved gifts for baby showers, anniversaries and more.

For her, gardening is an art, a source of solace, a path to mindfulness and a reminder to make time for giving freely to others.

When she and her husband, Ben, first moved into their home 14 years ago, their yard didn’t include any desirable vegetation. Generous neighbors and family members shared plants to help get them started.

Now, during the winter months, Jamie’s living room doubles as a greenhouse where she starts many of her seedlings. “A lot of kale, a lot of broccoli, pumpkins and loofahs. They grow like big cucumbers,” Jamie says.

A former sales engineer, Jamie changed careers during the pandemic. Suddenly spending more time at home and reeling from the recent and devastating loss of both parents, she coped by channeling her energy into painting and other creative projects. She also enrolled in the University of Minnesota Extension Master Gardener Volunteer program. As part of her certification, a requirement to complete a set number of volunteer hours sparked her motivation to build the cart as both a creative outlet and a vehicle for sharing the fruits of her labor and gardening education and inspiration.

It won’t be long before the weather warms up and Jamie’s Giving Garden Cart is on full display in her neighborhood again, bursting with bouquets and overflowing baskets of deliciously ripe vegetables, just in time for another summer of giving.

5 Ways To Share A Garden Surplus

Reach out to your local food shelf, shelters, churches, kitchens and other communitybased organizations to see if they accept perishable donations.

Grab your gardening tools and a friend and help a neighbor plant a flower bed or vegetable garden.

Prepare fruit and vegetable trays and gift them to busy families and neighbors in need. Chop up your extra lettuce, carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes to create fresh, ready-to-go salads.

Organize a garden surplus swap in your neighborhood.

Create your own Giving Garden Cart! Jamie can even help—reach her at limestcreative.com for a made-to-order cart.