Anyone, anywhere — every windowsill counts.
Got a garden? Register it, log donations to your local food pantry, climb a national counter. Any size, any state, any skill level. The Network counts every space that grows food.
No credit card · 90 seconds · All 50 states · Find a pantry →
A small garden changes the math.
One in seven US households couldn't reliably afford food in 2023. Meanwhile, the average American backyard is 10,871 square feet of mowed lawn. A small garden — two raised beds, a balcony array, a windowsill — produces enough to feed someone besides yourself.
Register, donate, show up on a national counter.
The Network is a public ledger of distributed food production. Anyone with a growing space — yard, patio, balcony, indoor hydroponic, windowsill — registers in 90 seconds. When you donate produce to a local food pantry, you log the pounds. The counter ticks up. Your state moves on the leaderboard. Your medal tier climbs.
No fees, no product, no service required. The Network is the free front door — paid Builds and Designs run separately, and a portion of every paid Build helps fund a Second Garden for a food-insecure household.
Privacy is the priority: city-level location only, public tier and pounds, real name and address private unless you opt in to a featured profile.
Where the Network grows.
Every registered garden shows up as a pin. Pittsburgh shows hot because that's where we started. The map fills in nationally as gardens register — counter updates weekly.
Registered gardens · US density
8 total · 1 state · updated weekly- 01 Pittsburgh 17 lbs
- 02 Aspinwall 7 lbs
- 03 Wilkinsburg 6 lbs
- 04 Dormont 5 lbs
- 05 Mt. Lebanon 3 lbs
A friendly public scoreboard.
Updated weekly. If you're on the list, you're a weapon. If you're not, register your garden and get to work.
Top states
Lbs donated · YTD- 01 PA 38 lbs
- 02 Open · register a garden —
- 03 Open · register a garden —
- 04 Open · register a garden —
- 05 Open · register a garden —
More states fill in as gardens register
Top cities
Lbs donated · YTD- 01 Pittsburgh, PA 17 lbs
- 02 Aspinwall, PA 7 lbs
- 03 Wilkinsburg, PA 6 lbs
- 04 Dormont, PA 5 lbs
- 05 Mt. Lebanon, PA 3 lbs
Pittsburgh metro · season to date
Periodic medals. Pounds, not posture.
Every garden starts at zero. Log a donation, climb a tier. Badges appear on your public profile card — and on your garden's map pin.
Bronze
First pantry drop. You showed up. That's a weapon activated.
Silver
Steady hand. You've fed your neighborhood through a whole season.
Gold
Serious yield. Your garden is doing what a small urban farm does.
Platinum
A half-ton of fresh produce. You're a local food system.
Two short forms. Free forever.
Register once. Come back to log donations as often as you want. No account, no app, no login wall. Capped only by what your kitchen scale can weigh.
"I used to feel silly just taking a handful of peppers to the pantry — until I realized what three large, fresh, organic peppers cost at the grocery store."
Same logic at the network scale. Distributed gardens fund distributed food relief — a lot of small acts, not one big one.
- → Free, forever — no credit card, no fees, no app
- → Public counter, private contact info
- → Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act covers donors
- → Cancel and delete with one email
- → All 50 states · every space that grows food
Register your garden
Takes 90 seconds. You'll show up on the density map within 24 hours and get a Garden ID for donation logging.
Log this week's donation
Drop off produce at a local pantry? Log it here. Your garden's counter climbs, the state leaderboard updates, your medal tier moves closer.
Find your local pantry in 30 seconds.
AmpleHarvest.org maps every US food pantry that accepts fresh produce. Drop your ZIP, pick the closest one, drive over on a Tuesday morning.
Profiles publish once members opt in.
No invented names, no stock photos pretending to be member gardens. Featured profiles run with explicit permission — and only after a real drop is logged.
Pittsburgh queue
First three Pittsburgh registrations are queued. When they log their first drop and opt in, the first card publishes here — name, photo, garden type, pounds donated.
Open call
Registered already and want to be featured? Reply to your welcome email with a photo and a sentence about your garden. We write the profile back to you for approval before it goes live.
Out of state
Network members outside PA already show up on the state counter. Featured non-Pittsburgh profiles run next quarter, once we've cleared a permissions pass by phone.
Federal law protects donors from liability. You're covered.
The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act (1996) protects individuals and organizations who donate food in good faith to a nonprofit. Damages, injury, illness from donated food? Not on you — unless gross negligence or intentional misconduct is involved.
That's the federal floor. Most states layer additional protections on top. The practical version: if you grew it and donated it clean and in good faith, the law is on your side.
No strings.
The five we hear most. Everything about the Network is free, forever.
Do I need to buy anything from GardenSoon to donate garden produce in Pittsburgh?
No. The GardenSoon Network is fully free and has no product attached. No Build, no Design, no service required. Any garden, any size, any space counts — a yard, a patio, a single tomato plant on a windowsill in any of the 50 states. Registration takes 90 seconds with no credit card.
Who sees my data when I register a garden on the Network?
Public display shows your ZIP (rounded to the city on the map), your garden's season total in pounds donated, and your medal tier. Full name, email, and address stay private unless you explicitly opt in to a featured garden profile. Delete your garden from the Network at any time — one email does it.
Can businesses, community gardens, or schools join the GardenSoon Network?
Yes, and the Network encourages it for tracking donate garden produce Pittsburgh totals at scale. Register under the organization name with a single coordinator as contact. School gardens and community plots often post the strongest numbers — one coordinator can log monthly drops for a whole growing program.
Do three tomato plants from a balcony count for a Plant a Row Pittsburgh donation?
Yes. A garden is a garden. If you grew it and you logged it, it counts. Most Pittsburgh pantries accept a bag of three tomatoes and a handful of herbs from a balcony — the GPCFB Find Food directory shows neighborhood drops with current hours. The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act protects donors from liability.
How do I log a garden donation on the GardenSoon Network?
Use Form 02 above. You'll need your Garden Number (emailed after registration), your private Donation Token (17-character string from the welcome email), the date, the pantry name, and the weight in pounds. A kitchen scale is accurate enough. Photo upload coming post-launch — optional, but helps your garden get featured.
Register your garden. Feed a neighbor.
Ninety seconds, no credit card, no catch. You join a national counter and a local pantry gets fed. That's the deal.