A Minnesota master gardener spreads joy in her neighborhood through a giving garden cart.
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], with probably over 100 pounds of beans, kale, peas and tomatoes. Just giving them out to anybody that 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, that 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
1) Reach out to your local food shelf, shelters, churches, kitchens and other community-based organizations to see if they accept perishable donations.
2) Grab your gardening tools and a friend and help a neighbor plant a flower bed or vegetable garden.
3) 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.
4) Organize a garden surplus swap in your neighborhood.
5) Create your own Giving Garden Cart! Jamie can even help—reach her at limestcreative.com for a made-to-order cart.
Note: This article originally appeared in the spring 2024 issue of Northern Gardener magazine published by the Minnesota State Horticultural Society. Click on the link below to access free teaser articles or to subscribe: https://northerngardener.org/what-we-do/northern-gardener-magazine/
More with creative artist and gardening extraordinaire Jamie Miller…
In 2021, Jamie launched Limestreet Creative and Company, where she sells acrylic paintings, handmade signs and frames, decorative cards and many other custom-made gifts.
“My grandmother was an artist; my aunt is an artist. It’s just kind of in my DNA,” she says.
Put a LIME in It
The clever naming of her creative endeavor originated from an old street sign that was given to her by close friends.
“I love a good cocktail with some limes in it and my best friends know that. They found a decommissioned Lime Street sign for me and when I received it, I vowed that someday I would own a company and name it Lime Street,” Jamie says.
Before her garden cart came to be, each summer, she would set out a little table at the end of her driveway, filling it up with whatever flowers or extra vegetables she had available.
“People would be so thankful or walk up and grab stuff and all the sudden I’d come home and there’d be a bag of little treats or a thank you card or something,” she says.
In August of 2022, she enrolled in the University of Minnesota’s master gardener program, where they offer one of the largest master gardener programs in the country.
“I fell in love with so many aspects of what I was learning—the advocacy and the outreach, the sharing and the whole ideals of the program,” Jamie says.
(One of Jamie’s acrylic paintings)
“Just understanding that, not only are you sharing gardening or the fruits of your labor, but you’re also educating people and inspiring them,” she says.
“That’s how the cart came to be. It’s all different parts and then throwing some wheels on it and sharing the gifts of the garden,” Jamie says.
Photo Credits:
Tracy Walsh Photography: 1-5, 7, 12
Lime Street Creative & Co: 6, 8,9-11
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