Growing Together: URI Master Gardeners’ Partnership with Mount Hope Farm

October 27, 2025
Over the past decade, the URI Master Gardener Program has played a critical role in helping transform the community garden at Mount Hope Farm into an accessible, productive, educational, and sustainable community asset. The farm will now transition into being a part of the Master Gardeners’s alumni network.

The gardens at Mount Hope Farm in Bristol, Rhode Island, have blossomed into a vibrant space for sharing knowledge, building community, and growing food–including thousands of pounds of food that are donated to the East Bay Food Pantry every year. Since 2016, URI’s Master Gardener Program (URIMGP) has partnered with the farm’s Growing 4 Good Garden to provide volunteer opportunities for local residents, produce quality food at no cost for local families in need, teach planting methods, and more. 

Thanks to the strong partnership, what began as five raised beds at Mount Hope Farm has grown into 11,000 square feet of space welcoming volunteers of all abilities. “With URI Master Gardeners’ help and experience, we were able to expand the gardens to meet the Mount Hope Farm missions of accessibility, education, sustainable and environmentally sound food production,” says Beth Battey, MG ‘13, who has served as the liaison between URI and the farm.

“Without the URI Master Gardener Program, we would not have the resources to manage the many important steps that go into caring for such a critical community asset,” adds Brenda Turchetta, Executive Director of Mount Hope Farm. “The gardeners work pretty much year round to bring the harvest to completion at the end of the fall.” 

Over 1,800 pounds of produce is grown each year.

Over the past decade, URI Master Gardener volunteers have contributed time, expertise, and resources to support infrastructure and production, from installing an irrigation system and stainless steel sink to coordinating annual deliveries of compost, seeds, and starter plants. “URI has made a significant investment to allow us to order tools and growing supplies annually,” Battey says.

Together, they’ve also helped grow over 1,800 pounds of produce each year, tailored to the needs of local food pantry clients. “We grow veggies and herbs that the clients of the East Bay Food Pantry have requested,” Battey notes. “Tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, eggplant, strawberries, asparagus, squash, leeks, kale, swiss chard, parsley, to name a few.”

In addition to vegetables and herbs, the garden features bountiful flower beds–managed without pesticides–and serves as an outdoor classroom for youth and visitors. Educational visits from groups like 4-H reflect the shared mission of learning through gardening.

In 2024, Mount Hope Farm bestowed the first-ever Rooted in Community Award to the Grow4Good garden volunteers for their “profound impact…and outstanding contribution to our community and their unwavering commitment to making Mount Hope Farm a beacon of sustainability and generosity.”

In 2024, Mount Hope Farm bestowed the first-ever Rooted in Community Award to the URIMGP volunteers. Pictured is Vanessa Venturini, program leader for the URIMGP.

The partnership between the Growing 4 Good Garden and URI Master Gardener Program has been a resounding success, and beginning in January of 2026, the garden will transition to an Alumni Network designation. This designation honors the program’s longstanding partners that have successfully reached their gardening goals and paves the way for the URIMGP to serve a different community through a gardening project in need of support. 

Thanks to the strong foundation, the Growing 4 Good Garden will continue to thrive. “Our hope is that the garden continues as a resource for educating youth while also helping with food insecurity,” says Turchetta.

URI Cooperative Extension

The University of Rhode Island’s Cooperative Extension advances the University’s land-grant commitment to public education by ensuring that research findings serve local communities. Through non-formal programs in agriculture, environmental and human health, and community and youth development, Cooperative Extension collaborates with state and local agencies to provide research-based resources to the public. The URI Master Gardener Program was established in 1977 to educate a diverse volunteer base to share evidence-based knowledge that fosters sustainable practices for protecting the environment, growing food, and increasing access to gardening for everyone in our community.

The URI Gardening and Environmental Hotline is a free service that provides high-quality, science-based solutions to problems encountered by residential gardeners. It is staffed by trained URI Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners who will connect you to science-based horticultural information via phone (401)-874-4836.

Mount Hope Farm, located at 250 Metacom Avenue in Bristol, is open daily for the public to walk the grounds from 9:00am-6:00pm, except when closed for private events.