Build It Up
Grow With Us
Build It Up provides organic gardening education from seed to harvest. Learn how to grow, prepare, and preserve food from your own backyard!
Applications for the 2025 program are now closed.
Our Programs
Since 2012, Build It Up has offered gardening education and installed over 200 new gardens in East Tennessee. We offer support to backyard gardeners, market gardeners, and school and community gardens.
Learn more about each service by clicking the links below.
Backyard Gardeners Program
We guide 30-40 families through a year of organic gardening education and support. Families receive plants, seeds, tools, fertilizer, and more to help grow healthy, fresh food right in their own backyards.
Market Gardeners Program
We foster entrepreneurship through agriculture and support market gardeners up to a half-acre in size.
Stay Connected through our YouTube Channel!
We post our workshops, informational videos and more to our YouTube channel. Check it out to learn more about some of the ways we choose to garden, equipment we prefer, and tips and tricks along the way!
Over 200 Families Served
Wish your kids knew where their food comes from? Gardening provides so many opportunities for kids (and adults!) to learn about food, nature, and the joy of dirt under your fingernails. Learn more about our Backyard Gardening Program:
Grow Organically
We teach how to grow organically and in harmony with our ecosystem. Our workshops focus on gardening in ways that prevent and disease issues naturally without relying on chemical fertilizers or sprays.
Pounds of Food Grown
%
Organic
Families
Latest from the blog:
We feature stories from our Build It Up participants as well as guides for when to be doing what in your garden like succession planting recommendations, seed starting, and more.
Winnie Li: Gardener’s Story
This year, I’m excited to focus on growing more pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and corn. Last year’s harvest was incredible! There’s something so rewarding about having an abundance of food to share with neighbors and friends. I’m particularly proud of still having frozen bell and sweet peppers in my freezer.
Megan Tewell: Gardener’s Story
The Build It Up program came at the perfect time for me and my family. Equipped with new information and resources, we made our first garden plan. The program helped us create and maintain a planting schedule, and an ambitious garden layout. Factoring in watering needs, sun orientation, and soil conditions, we started to really learn more about our land. And though it required a lot of hard, consistent work, we have been rewarded each day with progress.
Tending Roots of Reciprocity: A First-Year Reflection
Each workshop begins with an invitation to connect with someone you do not yet know. We are asked to spend a few minutes learning about their experiences, challenges, and goals. These simple conversations feel like planting seeds of friendship and collaboration. They remind me that growing food and growing community are not separate things. They are the same practice.
Special Thanks
Build It Up is one of many Grow Appalachia partner sites. Click below to learn more about Grow Appalachia and our sister programs.