Plant Sale & About Us

Mark your calendars for the next Annual Plant Sale & Benefit, Saturday March 1, 2025, from 9:00-2:00 at 4814 Sunshine Drive!

Learn from knowledgeable gardeners while you choose from 87 varieties of tomatoes, 72 varieties of peppers (40 hot, 32 sweet), 19 varieties of eggplant, 6 varieties of tomatillos, and 7,000 herbs.

In addition to the over 24,000 vegetable and herb plants for sale, there will be native flowers, pass along plants, succulents, organic compost, and silent auction items. You can also explore booths of local vendors, walk through our gardens, and listen to some local music. 

We will be posting listings of the tomato and pepper varieties available at the sale. Stay tuned! 

In the meantime, check out the results from the 2024 Sunshine Tomato Trials and Taste Testing to find our garden’s best performing and favorite tastiest tomato varieties.

If you’d like to volunteer for the Plant Sale & Benfit, please sign-up here. Additional information on volunteer opportunities will be posted soon.

Sunshine Community Gardens (SCG) is a vibrant, year-round community garden with a long rich history, and origins dating back to 1974. SCG was named after its current location on Sunshine Drive. Located at its present site since 1983, Sunshine has served as an urban oasis, a place for reflection and community building, located in an increasingly dense central Austin. 

With approximately 320 gardeners, 230 garden spaces, and about three acres of gardens and common areas with access to roads, water and soil amendments, it ranks as one of the largest and most successful community gardens in the country. The garden has operated principally by grassroots volunteer participation with management of business affairs by a board of directors elected by the members.

Full, half, and quarter sized plots are offered, as well as wheelchair accessible gardens, plots for the visually impaired, and micro plots for children. The land is leased from Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI) and they are our generous partners in providing the Sunshine and greater community with an urban oasis for growing and enjoying organic food and flowers. All Blind Children of Texas is a community partner of the TSBVI, and therefore, is a sponsored charity supported by Sunshine Community Gardens.

SCG is a Certified Natural Wildlife Habitat, provides space for a Chicken Cooperative, and has a variety of specialty gardens, such as a contemplative garden, tomato testing garden, and MICAH 6 garden that grows fresh produce for the Micah 6 of Austin Food Pantry.

Sunshine Community Gardens has also operated under a variety of non-profit, 501(c)(3) tax exempt organizations since its inception (formerly known as Austin Community Gardens), including the YWCA, Austin Community Gardens, the Sustainable Food Center, and Greenlights for Non-Profit Success.

Since 2009, SCG has been a program of its 501(c)(3) nonprofit parent organization, Community Garden Initiative of Central Texas (CGICT).

Statement of Purpose: To beautify, conserve and provide public access to green space by providing opportunities for the public to engage in organic community gardening.

Mission Statement: To beautify, conserve and provide public access to green space by providing opportunities for the public to engage in organic community gardening to benefit the residents of Central Texas for generations to come.

In 2023, SCG gardeners worked 3,333 service hours for this purpose.

Want to review a previous Weekly Weeder?

You can access the Weekly Weeders Archive for 2023 – forward here. 

For older copies, please send your request in the Contact Us form below.

Sunshine Community Gardens engages in a variety of activities which promote Sunshine’s purposes as a 501(c)(3) organization. These activities are often both charitable and educational

In 2023, SCG donated 2,783 pounds of fresh produce; 1,051 pounds of dry and purchased goods; 2 grocery sacks of new, and $300 cash to the Micah 6 Food Pantry.

Micah 6 serves diverse Central Austin community. The food pantry helps low-income individuals and families meet their most basic need for food and sustenance. Shoppers come from many walks of life: some have mental and physical disabilities, some are burdened with addictions, some are families who do not qualify for government assistance, and some have unexpectedly experienced unemployment or other crisis and are unable to provide food for their families. All are welcome.

• Non-perishable donation suggestions:
• Canned meats such as tuna and stew (pop-up tops preferred)
• Canned vegetables and soup
• Dry beans and rice
• Healthy cereals
• Peanut butter
• Packaged milk and juice that requires no refrigeration

In 2023, SCG provided 1,710 plants to area schools. Sunshine’s “Plants for Schools” supports school gardens either directly by donating plants to schools or indirectly by supporting organizations which support school gardens. 

The program has evolved over the years. Originally, Sunshine donated unsold plants from Sunshine’s Spring Plant Sale to area schools.  Over time, Sunshine began budgeting specific funds and purchased additional plants to supplement the unsold plants. The program also expanded to provide plants to schools in both fall and spring. 

Most recently, Sunshine became a financial sponsor of Spread the Harvest Fair, an event organized by Central Texas School Garden Network to provide schools with plants, seeds and compost.

In 2023, Sunshine Community Gardens donated $2,000 to All Blind Children of Texas (ABCTX). ABCTX is a community partner of the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and therefore, is a sponsored charity supported by Sunshine Community Gardens. Subsequently, ABCTX is a priority for SCG donations, and Sunshine gardeners receive the opportunity to donate to ABCTX as part of paying their annual dues.  

Educational tours of the garden are given to demonstrate techniques in organic gardening and a test garden is maintained to develop recommendations for varieties suitable for this area.

At SCG, we maintain various types of gardens that exemplify our dedication to creating a sustainable environment and a thriving organic and urban gardening community: gardens for individuals (plots, including a Memorial wheel chair accessible raised and Children’s micro garden plots), a Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI) Garden, a food bank donation garden, tomato varietal testing garden, and specialty gardens ( Contemplative, Herb, Salvia, Pollinator, and Pocket Prairie). SCG is also a Certified Wildlife Habitat.

Vernon Barker Memorial Garden – Accessible Beds are for gardeners who cannot garden at ground level beds because of health, age or some type of disability.  The area is wheelchair accessible and four of the ten raised beds are specifically designed for wheelchair bound gardeners.  

The Children’s Garden at Sunshine Community Gardens launched in the Spring of 2023. With Sunshine gardeners volunteering time and effort preparing the space, 13 3×3 beds were created for children ages 5-13. The 3×3 beds allow the children to easily reach the center of their beds. The children sign a contract and have an adult sponsor to connect them with their garden bed. They are provided a list of plants acceptable to plant in their plots, child-sized hand tools and washing table, and a picnic bench for rest and rehydration.

Eventually, the Children’s Garden will have a little lending library and benches. The Children’s Garden Coordinators host a Fall Fun Fest for the children gardeners, a fall activity, make pumpkin slime, count seeds, and tour the TSBVI garden area. Sunshine Community Gardens is so happy to share the love of gardening with our youngest community members. If you know a child interested in gardening in one of these plots, contact us in the form below.

The TSBVI Garden is a 60’ x 40’ area at Sunshine Community Gardens managed by the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI) staff to provide TSBVI students with a friendly place to garden.  To make it a friendly place to garden for visually impaired individuals, the garden has decomposed granite paths and bordered and raised beds.  It also has an arbor for shade.  The garden was designed and constructed by Sunshine volunteers.  Sunshine provides ongoing support by donating plants and compost, weeding the paths, helping maintain the garden during the summer when TSBVI staff are on vacation, and making needed repairs to bordered and raised beds.

The Tomato Trial Garden serves an educational purpose of identifying tomato and other plant varieties which do well in Austin. It also serves a charitable purpose, since produce from this garden is donated to the Micah 6 Foodbank.

Visit the Tomatoes Section for information on this year’s tomato trial results.

From the south end of the trailer’s covered front porch, past the wrought iron table and chairs, steps lead up to a “contemplative garden,” with a bench nestled among flowers.   Volunteers help maintain that and the planting around the trailer.

“Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions  nor conflicts.”

—Sigmund Freud

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When walking around the gardens, you may have a chance to meet Sunny the cat. Sunny appeared in 2016 at Sunshine Gardens.  He was trapped by some caring gardeners and has been neutered.  That is why his ear is clipped.  He is mostly feral although a few caregivers can pet him. But that doesn’t mean he won’t scratch even them! Sunny is best appreciated with a bit of distance.

Sunny is well taken care of, so no need to wonder or worry. He is fed dry food (Purina One) and it is placed in an automatic feeder that is programmed to feed him twice a day 8 o’clock and 5 o’clock.

PLEASE DO NOT TURN THE FEEDING COMPARTMENTS.  If Sunny does the “I am starving meow” and you believe him, you can put a little of his food in the exposed compartment but be careful as he might swipe at you. He probably is one of the fattest feral cats, but he does not like wet food, no matter what he meows at you. So please, do not feed him wet food.

Gardeners are welcome to change his water.  Fresh water is always good.