Sanctuary Soil is honored to have our Empire Builder premium soil used by Local Ecology and Agriculture Fremont (LEAF). The non-profit organization provides environmental education to the Fremont, California community about sustainability, local foods, organic gardening, green building and more. All photos copyright LEAF.
California Nursery Historical Park
LEAF is currently expanding its facilities to a 0.55 acre site at the California Nursery Historical Park (CNHP). The LEAF facility is new, but the historic site is actually quite old. In fact, there has been a nursery in this location nearly continuously since 1884. In its heyday, the nursery stretched more than 500 acres and was the largest retail nursery west of the Rockies, according to one of LEAF’s founders Justine Burt.
“This historic site allows us to continue to build a more robust local food economy that honors this area’s rich agricultural past,” says Justine. “We want to connect gardeners of all ages to the land. We’re excited to plan for spring 2014 planting in our community garden at CNHP.”
Empire Builder
LEAF is using Sanctuary Soil’s flagship Empire Builder soil in the raised beds at CNHP. Each bag of this premium artisanal soil features at least 10 pounds of Buckaroo worm 
castings, along with organic compost, aged forest humus and proprietary mineral amendments. Made the old-fashioned way, this earth-friendly soil compares to 6 to 7 years of proper crop rotations, cover crops and organic growing methods in the garden.
LEAF Helps Community
After moving to CNHP, LEAF will continue to perform three main activities to honor the site’s heritage. In partnership with other community groups, LEAF will:
1) Grow plants at its nursery;
2) Host workshops on organic gardening; and
3) Provide garden spaces to those with limited access to soil.
LEAF’s programs are helping 600 community members in their area to connect with the land by learning the finer points of organic gardening from each other.
Sanctuary Soil salutes this community program and encourages you to support LEAF at http://www.leafcenter.org/ .
