Sunny Glen Garden

Sunny Glen Garden Growing into life's possibilities! Turning urban lawns into edible forest gardens & wildlife habitat Come join in the fun!

Sunny Glen Wellness wants to show others that growing your own food in your backyard can be fun, simple and cheap to start, easy to maintain and grow, and produce healthy fresh food almost all year round. You don't need to know all of this yourself, as this can be done through the sharing of ideas, information, equipment and resources, with neighbors and friends, where everyone is included and can

enjoy it together. Sunny Glen Wellness has a food garden and certified wildlife habitat in the North Linden community of Columbus, Ohio. Dianne and Stephen are working towards a self-sustainable and self-sufficient veggie and fruit food production in their urban backYarden instead of growing grass, using natural methods that require minimal care, produce a lot of food, and contribute to health and wellbeing of people, creatures, and the planet. In about 1000 sq ft of space, the Sunny Glen Garden has a baby perennial food forest consisting of chestnut, (fruit trees to come), hazelnut bushes, and a variety of currant, gooseberry & raspberries, an annual veggie garden, and flowers for the pollinators. Seeds are saved and traded in various seed saver groups in the neighborhood. They have a miniature sprouting operation with heat mats & grow lights where all the sprouties were started for the garden and a low cold frame with a temperature controlled wax cylinder opener to extend the growing season. A donated barrel composter, newspaper & recycled cardboard, leaf mulching & cured horse manure adds nutrients in the soil, and a drainable pond to collect rain water assists with irrigation.

Turns out, if you give neighbors native plants, and children a raised vegetable bed and playground, pollinator habitat, ...
05/29/2026

Turns out, if you give neighbors native plants, and children a raised vegetable bed and playground, pollinator habitat, bird lists, and a suspicious amount of wood chips… a community starts looking a lot more like an ecosystem. 🌻🐝🌎

Sunny Glen Garden and the CCC for PPP (Connecting Community Corridor for People, Pollinators, and the Planet), along with our incredible collaborators, have now donated:

🌱 50+ mini native plant gardens (6ft x 10ft pocket prairies of glory)
🥕 A raised vegetable garden
🛝 A children’s mini-playground
🌳 5 native trees

Most gardens are on private property in Linden, but now the pollinator party is climbing balconies and patios too! Through the Balconies for Biodiversity grant, we’re adding 30 native plant container gardens for renters and apartment dwellers. Tiny spaces. Big bee and butterfly energy. 🐝 🦋 Apply here: https://forms.gle/qA2EAgDdx6JTCPRu8

Several of these gardens are stewarded through the County, OH Master Gardener program known as the CCC for PPP Bucket Brigade. Most Wednesday mornings from 9:30 am – 11:30 am, we meet at Sunny Glen Garden before venturing out to the nearby CCC for PPP gardens, like an ecological treasure hunt crew.

Activities may include:
🗺️ Mapping native plants
🌿 Identifying edible weeds
🐦 Listening for birds
🐝 Checking bumblebee homes
🪵 And moving approximately one million wood chips on the driveway to the CCC for PPP gardens!

It’s been wonderful meeting the new 2026 Franklin County Master Gardener Volunteers! They’ve been absolutely hauling mulch this month and helping these gardens thrive. Legends in hats and gloves. 🌿💪👒👩‍🌾👨‍🌾 We are appreciative of their support!

Want to join us? You’re welcome anytime!
📧 Email [email protected] for more info...

05/26/2026

Our interesting seeds, thanks to Slow Food USA Plant a Seed program, were poked into the donated raised garden vegetable bed by the children who are caring for it with daily watering! Grateful to First Unitarian Universalist of Columbus for donations to replenish with new organic soil this year. We are excited to see what comes!

* Cocke's Prolific Corn developed in the 1800's for beautiful grits and cornmeal

* Red Fife Spring Wheat known for it's nutty flavor renowned as one of the best milling and baking wheats from Canada.

These root crops are a wonderulf way to break up hard soil and are often called "mining" plants as their deep taproots break through depleted or heavy soils so that oxygen and soil bilding nicrobes abd smaller roots can access, and bring soil nutirents up into their leaves:

* Mangelwurzel Beets are closely related to Swiss Chard with edible leaves and grows in an array of colors: white, pink, red, orange, golden, and purple or black! And different shapes from long to ovoid to spherial. It has good tolerance to drought and excellent root preservation qualities, and high sugar content and large yields. We intent to harvest the roots when they are tender and young.

* Pardailhan Black Turnip - only 165 people live in Pardailhan, 800 meters above sea level, just 40 kilometers from the Mediterranean, but surrounded by pastures where cows and sheep graze and there are oak and beech forests thick with wild boar. It is said that rain and fog are faborable for the turnips's growth in Pardaihan in autumn where turnips are said to "drink from their leaves." They are white on the inside, black outside and covered with small roots.

*Wisconscon purple carrot - the original wild carrots were white and pale yellow, and as they became domesticated 5,000 years ago, purples and reds started showing up in the roots! It is resilient, nutritious, and delicious!

We have some grain seeds left to use as cover crops after the season's crops are done, to put carbon back inot the soil as a soil building and regenerative grain like:

* Coral Sudanese Sorghum from Malakai, South Sudan, that can have carbon sequestering biomass, while holding our precious soil in place against winter erosion from wind and water. This sorghum has also been a multi-use croip in Africa for millenia, from beer to popcorn, to livestock feed to grain, to porridge to non-food uses, like building naterials.

* Purple Karma Barley - a Himalayan landrace variety collected in Tibet in 1924 where it spent 100 years in a seed bank before being grown in Oregon. Easy to grow, drought tolerant, good-yielding, highly nutritious crop that is hulless so we don't need special equipment to process it before cooking!

Yippee!!! I have been quite busy with a new project called Balconies for Biodiversity: Native Plant Container Gardens f...
05/23/2026

Yippee!!! I have been quite busy with a new project called Balconies for Biodiversity: Native Plant Container Gardens for Porches, Patios, and Pollinators! Many thanks to Franklin Soil and Water Conservation District Beyond Community Backyards Grant for making it possible to include apartment-dwellers, renters, and businesses, with growing native Ohio plants in container gardens that extends beyond their current program for property owners!

If you know an apartment-dweller, renter, or business, that would like a very large (30-gallon!) outdoor fabric grow pot, the soil to fill it, 5 native Ohio plants, and live wood chips to help retain moisture in summer, insulate the plants in winter, and eventually breakdown to provide plant nutrients, please share this post to let them know. Preference will be for renters in the Linden neighborhood but is not limited to this. They can apply by completing this google form: https://forms.gle/qA2EAgDdx6JTCPRu8

There are 30 of these grow pots from Greenhouse Megastore, Inc that are available and some who are on the Linden Bee Tree Trail will receive oyas from GrowOya - an ancient Indigenous practice of burying a clay pot in the soil and filling it with water which slowly permeates into the soil - it conserves 70% compared to surface watering and promotes a healthier, deeper root system.

We'll be emphasizing free educational workshops for the public so be on the look out for updates!

1) Best practices for native plants in container gardens
2) Franklin Soil and Water Community Backyards Rebate program
3) Permaculture solutions to Ohio's spring flooding and summer droughts

Apply for the Balconies for Biodiversity Native Plant Container Garden here:

https://forms.gle/qA2EAgDdx6JTCPRu8

I am continually inspired by the work that Jera and Adrienne have been doing with Growing and Growth Collective in their...
05/13/2026

I am continually inspired by the work that Jera and Adrienne have been doing with Growing and Growth Collective in their community and have enjoyed participating in several of their events - the thought-provoking films on tough topics but with insightful discussions that link us to folks doing something about it, and their fun events that bring people together. I wasn't able to attend their annual Sow the Seeds for GGC 2026: event as I was working out of town, but I appreciate so much, their Agricultural Education in Cities Impact Pillar Award and look forward to future collaborations!

* Collective Impact Awardees:
The Ohio State University and Central State University
* Comprehensive Health and Wellness Impact Pillar Awardees:
Cody Pham and Olivia Shao
* Food Access and Affordability Impact Pillar Awardee:
Pam Shields (Urban Aging Residents Coalition)
* Agricultural Education in Cities Impact Pillar Awardee:
Dianne Kadonaga (Sunny Glen Garden)
* Equitable Community Development Impact Pillar Awardee:
FACCES
* Collaboration Along the Rural-Urban Interface:
Karima Samadi (Mika Meadows LLC)

We have data from the first year of our “To Dig or Not to Dig” USDA North Central Region SARE research grant that we can...
05/12/2026

We have data from the first year of our “To Dig or Not to Dig” USDA North Central Region SARE research grant that we can share from each of the 3 research sites: Sunny Glen Garden, The Urban Farm Church, and the Johnstown site managed by our new partner, The Garden for All, this Wednesday, May 13, at 6 pm, at 3901 Maize Rd. We have been comparing vegetable growth and production of peppers and potatoes, soil health, watering resources, labor involved, etc., in the trial “No Dig”, regenerative agriculture beds versus the conventional “To Dig” tilled beds. You can also check out our videos showing our process/methods that can provide best practices, costs involved, for farmers and gardeners for using these methods. Free registration here: www.urbanfarmchurch.org/events1

Happy Mama's Day from the Berry Bungalow (Bluebird Box #1 located above the black raspberry patch) at the Sunny Glen Ga...
05/11/2026

Happy Mama's Day from the Berry Bungalow (Bluebird Box #1 located above the black raspberry patch) at the Sunny Glen Garden!!! How many baby chicks do you see in the pine needle nest? They are likely less than a week old as their eyes are still closed, and they are featherless, all snuggled in together. I've been watching Mama and Papa Bluebird fly in with food in their mouth all day as they perch on the phone line, look around, and then swoop down into the bluebird box to feed them. I will leave them be now so they are not accidentally scared into fledging before they are ready in a week or more.

Not sure who is nesting, with mostly grasses, in The Windy Wind Inn (bluebird box #2 in the South/Southwest corner, named for the prevailing Columbus winds) - Cody suggested a house sparrow or less likely a tree swallow.

And in the Sunset Serenade Suite (bluebox #3 on the west fence), it looks like a House Wren started the interior decor with sticks/small twigs, and then possibly a House Sparrow on top of that? And who's been chewing and pecking at the front entrance?

Can’t wait to get to know our new neighBIRDS, who will be moving into the CCC for PPP community in Linden! Six home twee...
05/11/2026

Can’t wait to get to know our new neighBIRDS, who will be moving into the CCC for PPP community in Linden! Six home tweet homes were built and custom designed by the kids at Franklin County 4-H Council Clover 5k Far East club last year, based on a pattern from NestWatch - Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

With the support of First Unitarian Universalist of Columbus Share the Plate donations this year, we were able to purchase garden equipment for the community, like this post pounder, and hardware (rebar, metal posts) to give these new bird homes a firm foundation.

And we welcomed our new Franklin County, OH Master Gardener Volunteers, like Muscle Michelle, lol, to pound in our posts!

Many thanks to bird extraordinaire, Cody Pham, who just completed his Phd exit seminar (congrats!) on Ecology and Education for Equity Across Cities, Urban Gardens, and Higher Education, who inspired and helped us figure out where best to place the bird homes in their environment to be most welcoming to our new bird friends, and Olivia who supported all of our projects and just graduated from her medical program too!

This was a true collaboration of many birds of a feather, who flocked together, to make this happen!

Yay! It's so heartening to see all these young people from The Ohio State University Sustainable Agriculture and Food Sy...
04/30/2026

Yay! It's so heartening to see all these young people from The Ohio State University Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems class interested in permaculture and regenerative agricultural practices to reduce flooding, build soil health, and create a biodiverse ecosystem in an urban setting, as they came to tour the Sunny Glen Garden as an example of what they are talking about in class. They also got to hear about the wonderful collaborations for the North Central Region SARE "To Dig or Not to Dig" grant in partnership with the The Urban Farm Church and The Garden for All , our two new grant projects for Linden this year, the Art Mural of the Rusty-Patched Bumblebee, and a couple of the donated Native Plant Gardens... Hats off to Doug for connecting their theoretical studies with the practical realities!

This makes me wanna add beavers into the mix! Come along the Kameland Trail with me! It's located near the beautiful Hig...
04/27/2026

This makes me wanna add beavers into the mix! Come along the Kameland Trail with me! It's located near the beautiful Highlands Nature Sanctuary, managed by the Arc of Appalachia near Bainbridge (Highland County), in southern Ohio, as part of the Wildflower Pilgrimage last weekend. Kameland is known for its rolling meadows, mature forests, as surprising new territory and habitat is emerging, master engineered by ... our BEAVER friends! Check out their dam work!

Although our current conventional (tilled, pesticide, herbicide-driven) farming methods produce a lot of food, it is not...
04/26/2026

Although our current conventional (tilled, pesticide, herbicide-driven) farming methods produce a lot of food, it is not sustainable, as soil nutrients are continuously depleted over time, leading to nutrient-deficient food with soil degradation as it gradually turns to sand. This is the impetus that has catapulted me to turn my yard into an evolving food forest and wildlife habitat, experimenting with wholistic Indigenous ways and regenerative agriculture practices, backed up by soil health data from our North Central Region SARE's To Dig or Not to Dig grant, that shows we can BUILD the health of the soil, not only to provide healthy, nutrient-rich food for people, but for the pollinators, birds, and other wildlife that it supports. I want to be able to tell my son, Sam, that I'm doing what I can with what I have, towards a better future. And one of the most impressive and impactful movements I've found that is taking this globally, is Sadhguru's Save Soil Movement, launched by Conscious Planet. We have Isha Foundation volunteers who are setting up a Walk for Children - 2026 SaveSoil Walkathon in Columbus with 30 other cities! I would love it if you could join us at the Scioto Audubon Metro Park, starting north of the Grange Insurance Audubon Center with check-in starting at 8:30 am, Saturday, April 26, with soil health speakers starting at 9:15 am to bring more awareness to what is possible. Immediately following the walkathon, you can enjoy a Columbus Earth Day event organized by Green Columbus, from 11 AM to 7 PM, which features many local vendors and will have a variety of other activities for children and adults alike. Please visit https://www.earthdaycolumbus.org/earth-day for more details.

To see what the Save Soil movement has achieved in this past year: https://youtu.be/EBb7Y0_5I4o?si=P5M4JD6bWc2k3hfc

Or visit: https://consciousplanet.org/en/save-soil to learn more.

And come join our local efforts with Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association Healthy Soil initiative for policy advocacy!

Walkathon map in comments!

These Garden Gumballs almost look good enough to eat! Participants learned about the importance of Ohio native plants an...
04/13/2026

These Garden Gumballs almost look good enough to eat! Participants learned about the importance of Ohio native plants and made 277 native plant seed balls to giveaway at upcoming Sunny Glen Garden and the CCC for PPP community workshops and events! Gratitude to Candace, Lacy, and the 4H Far East Club Kids with Ohio State - Franklin County 4-H for pulling this project together for the Franklin County 4-H Council Clover 5k Walk and Serve event!!!

It was a bit like making thumbprint cookies, lol, only with Old Potters Low Fire White Clay, and filling it with a pinch of soil and a pinch of native plant seeds before sealing and rolling it into a seed ball! Many thanks to Sean Michael McKay for the seed ball recipe and provision of native plant seeds, and to Simply Living for partnering with us!

Now to another fun part - what would you name these seed balls? Myrlyn suggested Seedy Soil Spheres (SSS for the CCC for PPP, lol). How about Nature Nuggets? What names can you suggest?




Address

Columbus, OH

Opening Hours

12pm - 3pm

Telephone

+14046036284

Website

https://linktr.ee/sunnyglengarden

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