The Blue Jay's Perch garden is a verdant gem tucked away in the Waverly community. The garden was started in 2011 by members of the JHU student group Real Food Hopkins; these members sought a space to engage students, staff, faculty, and the community in growing and learning about food. In 2020, the Blue Jay's Perch Club was started by JHU students to engage more Hopkins students to volunteer at The Perch!
The Perch is 4,000 square feet in area and has individual plots where community members and JHU affiliates grow their own crops using sustainable methods. Additionally, the Perch has a few communal plots that are tended to and shared by everyone. When there are large harvests, extra crops are donated to the Maryland Food Bank to help nourish food-insecure youth and families. The Perch is grateful to its dedicated community members and volunteer groups that help make everything possible.
JHU volunteers from the Blue Jay's Perch Club, student groups such as Real Food Hopkins and Alpha Phi Omega (a service fraternity) help maintain the garden. Despite being mainly a fruit and vegetable garden, we are also a community space that hosts gatherings for everyone to bond and enjoy all the chirping sounds of the Jays in the garden.
The Perch is a place for building long-term and meaningful relationships within the Johns Hopkins community and Baltimore residents. Green-thumb or not, we would love to see you in the garden!
The garden is located at the Johns Hopkins Eastern Campus (next to the track and field):
1101 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD 21218. Visit us on Google Maps!
Questions or comments? We'd love to hear from you! jhucommgarden@gmail.com.