Alt Nature Center & Preserve - 2489 Whitehaven Rd, Grand Island

 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Founded in 1870, the Alt Nature Preserve is a protected 40-acre habitat for wildlife and education. With a one-room schoolhouse that serves as the Alt Nature Center, the space promotes compassionate coexistence with wildlife and ecological gardening to promote biodiversity and healthy habitats. We will offer educational self-guided edible plant walks around the Alt Nature Farm that emphasize common and easy-to-find species. Using wild plants as foods is becoming increasingly popular. We will provide a brief introduction to edible wild plants that you may be able to find and forage around your home -- for people with limited knowledge of plants. A fun-for-the-whole-family native plant and wildlife search that provides a fun format for exploring nature and learning how plants and animals interact.  Fill out the bingo card to win a wildlife-themed prize!

BFLO Worm Works – 317 Ensminger Rd., Tonawanda

10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

For Urban Farm Day 2026, BFLO Worm Works will be offering our exclusive behind-the-scenes vermicomposting tours and hands-on soil health workshops, giving visitors a look at how local food scraps are transformed into living soil. New this year, we’ll also be featuring Bio-active Worm Tea (foliar spray) and talking through how it’s used to support plant health, soil biology, and regenerative growing practices at home and on the farm. Visitors can expect practical education, real systems in action, and a deeper understanding of what “closing the loop” actually looks like in Buffalo.

Big Big Table & Lugar Hermoso de Pedro Community Garden - 272 Hudson St, Buffalo, NY, 14201

10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Grab a seat at the (Big Big) Table and experience a meal where everyone is welcome!

Big Big Table is Western New York’s first pay-as-you-can café, offering restaurant-quality meals in exchange for volunteer time, financial contributions, or in-kind donations of ingredients (like your garden produce!). Our goal is to build a healthier, socially connected community while offering a dignified response to food insecurity.

UFD visitors are invited to join the BBT team for a 10 am talk on our participatory approach to addressing hunger. New this year: the cafe will be open for lunch service 11am-2pm! Enjoy some plates featuring local farm produce, learn more about our mission, and explore the Lugar Hermoso de Pedro Community Garden across the street. We’ll also have seedlings to share and a chalk art station outside.

To learn more and get involved, visit bigbigtable.org.

The Brewster Street Farm - 36 Brewster St, Buffalo, NY 14214

10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Brewster Street Farm is an organic urban farm in the heart of Buffalo’s East Side. Our goal is to provide fresh local produce to Buffalo residents, strengthen local food systems and provide food and farming opportunities to newcomers in the Buffalo area. We are operated by Journey’s End Refugee Services on land donated by Tri-Main Development.  Come visit us on Urban Farm Day for a tour of our farm and enjoy a small harvest tasting!  

DeeplyRooted Community Garden – 98 Luksin St., Tonawanda

10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

‍Come visit the DeeplyRooted Community Garden, open to anyone interested in growing, gathering, relaxing, or harvesting in this public space. Established in 2022, DeeplyRooted offers traditional raised-bed annual gardens alongside regenerative designs that feed soil, wildlife, and humans long term. Our winding pathways lead from eleven raised-bed gardens rented to community members through multiple food forest guilds that layer fruit and nut trees with berry bushes, vines, and groundcover to create food-producing sustainable ecosystems. Highlights include our young fruit trees, medicinal garden, water catchment system, neighborhood-built composting bay, and edible native plant food forest. 

We gather at the garden for regular workshops that combine skill-building with hands-on practice; kid-focused learning and play; and monthly community potlucks. We warmly invite any WNYer interested in learning more, renting a raised bed, or joining our core group of volunteers to join us for Urban Farm Day or to email at contact@deeplyrootedwny.org. 

Alexandra Zirkle will be discussing "Anti-Capitalist Community Care: Feeding Ourselves from Seed" at 1:30pm. This talk will discuss how and why to grow food-producing native trees and shrubs from seed. Against the fallacy of rugged individualism, we will also discuss strategies for increasing native food production through trading, sharing, and neighborhood growing co-ops.

Guided tours available between12:30-1:30pm, visitors welcome before and after these hours.

Diefendorf Meadow (featuring the Pollinator Lounge)
55 Diefendorf Loop, UB South Campus  Buffalo

10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Free parking is available in the Diefendorf Lot.

A prominent feature within Diefendorf Meadow is the Pollinator Lounge (by Joyce Hwang and Nerea Feliz), an outdoor multi-species resting space originally commissioned by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for its 2024 exhibition, Natural Attractions: A Plant-Pollinator Love Story. Now relocated to UB, the installation includes wooden seating for human visitors alongside 43 habitat boxes designed for non-human inhabitants. Each habitat box was inspired by research on a pollinator local to New York and was designed and fabricated by sophomore architecture students at the University at Buffalo and freshman students at the University of Texas at Austin as part of their spring 2024 studios. Learn more about the UB Pollinator Garden here.

Diefendorf Meadow is a half-acre pollinator habitat on UB’s South Campus and a living pilot project in ecological campus design. The site was formerly home to a temporary annex building that was demolished in fall 2022. With newly open soil left behind, UB’s inaugural landscape architectural planner, Daniel Seiders, initiated the managed meadow as an experiment: How would the university community respond to an ecological landscape in place of conventional turf?

 To ensure immediate visual impact, the original seed mix emphasized annual species that would bloom in the first year. The response from students, faculty, staff, and neighbors was overwhelmingly positive. As a result, UB has committed to the meadow project for the foreseeable future, with plans to transition to native perennial wildflowers, enhance habitat value, and introduce seating and trails to support gathering, learning, and informal use.

Farmer Pirates Compost – 0 Gittere St, Buffalo

10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Farmer Pirates Compost is a worker-owned cooperative that produces compost from food waste generated across the Buffalo metro area. Every week we receive approximately 14 tons of food scraps, nearly half of which comes from the City of Buffalo "Scrap it! Curbside" program. We mix the food scraps with horse bedding and wood chips to build long windrows of compost. This amounts to a substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that these organic wastes would have otherwise produced had they gone to landfill, where they would decay in an anaerobic environment (lacking oxygen) and generate methane as a by-product. The finished compost that is produced is a positive for the climate, too -- each spring and fall we sell the finished compost to gardeners and farmers all around Western New York so it can improve soil and vegetation health in our city and region. 

Come visit our compost site and see the composting process in action!

5 Loaves Farm - 70 W. Delavan Ave, Buffalo

10 a.m. – 3 p.m.‍ ‍

5 Loaves is a community hub on Buffalo’s West Side, using once-vacant properties as a living classroom where we provide jobs for local youth, spiritual nourishment to our neighbors, and access to healthy, sustainably grown food.

We distribute food through our on-site farm stand (open Thursdays 4–7pm from July through September), and Provisions 139, a local food pantry. We take pride in our regenerative farming practices, including our commitment to avoid chemical pesticides or herbicides. To get involved or learn more visit https://5loavesfarm.org/get-involved.

Flat 12 Mushrooms - 37 Chandler St, Buffalo

9 a.m.- 2 p.m.

We’ve focused from the beginning on a neutral carbon footprint, growing all our gourmet mushrooms on site using organic raw materials year-round at our one-of-a-kind urban farm. Founded in 2014, our now expanded indoor farm harvests 1000 pounds a week, including lion’s mane, oyster, shiitake, chestnut and pioppino mushrooms. Our retail space offers fresh and dried mushrooms, medicinal mushroom extracts, mushroom pastries, lion’s mane chili crisp, lion’s mane brownies, lion’s mane coffee, mushroom vegan pate, compound cream cheese and every kid’s favorite, Lion’s Mane Nuggets! All things mushroom. We are open Wed-Fri 12-6pm; Sat-Sun 9-2pm

Grassroots Gardens - 389 Broadway, Buffalo

9 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Grassroots Gardens of WNY is a regional non-profit that helps communities start and develop community and school garden spaces across Buffalo and Niagara Falls. The community garden adjacent to Grassroots Gardens’ office is a teaching and demonstration garden that also serves as a growing space for the surrounding neighborhood. We utilize the space for workshops and programs while also growing free vegetables for our neighbors. With a newly updated mini-greenhouse for seed-starting and over a dozen raised beds, GGWNY supports many neighbors as well as a group from the Office of People with Developmental Disabilities to steward some of the beds in this space, while our staff grow and share the produce from the remaining beds. 

Groundwork Market Garden, 1698 Genesee St., Buffalo

10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

‍We are a USDA certified organic urban farm dedicated to producing a diverse selection of fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, herbs, flowers, and honey. Rooted in regenerative agriculture, we prioritize soil health, biodiversity, and sustainable growing practices that nourish both the land and our neighbors.

‍Since 2015, we have cultivated and distributed tens of thousands of pounds of fresh, nutritious, and affordable produce while creating spaces for connection, education, and celebration. From farm tours and workshops to community gatherings and food access partnerships, our work continues to grow beyond the field.

‍You can find our produce at our on-site farm stand, through our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, and at local restaurants, businesses, and institutions throughout Buffalo. Visit our farm stand every Tuesday from June through October, 4–7 PM, to shop the weekly harvest. Interested in getting involved? Volunteer opportunities and community events are happening all season long. Learn more at www.groundworkmg.com.

‍We look forward to welcoming you to the farm!

Isle View Produce Urban Farm - 234 Wadsworth Ave, Tonawanda

🛍️ 10am-3pm

Stunning Market Garden tucked in the suburbs. We grow vegetables, herbs, annuals, and perennials. An on-site flower/produce stand serves our community and beyond.

MAP - Massachusetts Avenue Project - 387 Massachusetts Avenue, Buffalo

10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

For over 20 years, the Massachusetts Avenue Project (MAP) has existed on Buffalo’s West Side as a neighborhood food hub and urban farm promoting equity and access by connecting people to nutritious, local food. Our urban farm is home to 2 greenhouses, chickens, bees and fruit trees outside of a farmhouse encompassing a certified commercial kitchen, cold and dry food storage as well as offices and training spaces. In addition to the farm, we operate a youth employment program, training teens in food systems advocacy and urban agriculture, a Mobile Market program, running 10 city-wide markets to address food insecurity, and a shared-use commercial kitchen that supports small scale food entrepreneurs, as well as community and youth education. Our dedicated staff and volunteers work in neighborhoods throughout Buffalo to build connections with residents and work with them to build a food system that benefits people, the planet and our regional economy.

Learn more: https://www.mass-ave.org/
Follow us on social media: @massaveproject

Dzielski Garden - 203 Rogers Ave Tonawanda

10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Come and see how we combine both our food garden space with children’s play space and work with our local wildlife so they don’t eat our food garden! We grow around 80lbs of tomatoes for homemade salsa! Each year we add a little more magic and imagination into our space - it's important to create a space that both children can play freely in their mud kitchen and we can grow food to feed our family. - we even invited our cats to join us outside two years ago and they have a blast in their CATIO! 

Pelion Outdoor Classroom (est. 2011) - 212 Best St, Buffalo

10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

This hybrid outdoor classroom engages 250+ students weekly through hands-on learning opportunities for students in topics of: plants, nutrition, natural science, WNY agriculture, eco-literacy, and stewardship. Volunteers transformed 4 blighted city lots across from City Honors School into a space that supports wildlife and is still over 50% edible, growing 7 different fruits, pollinator buffets supporting native bees, a vertical growing space and demonstrates how First Peoples grew staples of their diet. Count the gourds dangling on our 30' gourd trellis! Farm stand offers: fresh herbs and veggies, preserves, popping corn, and bee houses. Plus, U-PICK red wiggler worms and U-DIG native perennials and shrubblings.

Pelion also offers small garden plots for growing fresh cultural ingredients or hobby foods for your household. Please email peliongarden@gmail.com for an adoption contract.

www.pelionoutdoorclassroom.org

@pelionchs ‍https://www.facebook.com/PelionGarden

Instructor and Manager: Caesandra N. Seawell: peliongarden@gmail.com

Plant Partners - 223 Broad St, Tonawanda

10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Wander our 7-year-old food forest and permaculture nursery and see what’s possible when an urban home becomes a vibrant, productive landscape. Explore fruit tree guilds, a cob outdoor cooking space, log-grown mushroom yard, and integrated fiber plants for dye and craft — all woven into one family’s interpretation of homesteading in rhythm with nature.

Throughout the day, our home bakery will be in service, offering fresh sourdough loaves while supplies last.

Providence Farm Collective - Farmers Market: 130 Grant St, Buffalo (M & T Bank lot)

10 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Providence Farm Collective was established in 2019 as a non-profit umbrella organization with a mission of cultivating farmer-led and community-rooted agriculture and food systems to actualize the rights of under-resourced peoples. The collective includes members from eight diverse communities, united by a vision of equitable access to food and farmland. PFC provides community organizations with farmland to grow fresh, culturally significant crops that nourish Western New York. Additionally, our Incubator farm program empowers individuals to start their own farm businesses.

The Providence Farm Collective International Farmers Market is a cherished venue for our farmers to sell their produce directly to their communities and beyond. On July 2, 2022, we launched the PFC Farmers Market at 130 Grant Street in the M&T Bank parking lot. From June to October, every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the market offers fresh, affordable, and locally grown food to a diverse neighborhood, home to many refugee and immigrant communities. The market features a wide variety of culturally relevant foods, from African maize to Liberian bitter ball, which are often difficult to find elsewhere.

PUSH Buffalo's Hampshire Street Community Garden - 297 Hampshire Street, Buffalo, NY 14213

12 p.m. – 3 p.m.

Located on Buffalo’s West Side, one of the most culturally diverse yet historically underinvested neighborhoods, PUSH Buffalo's Hampshire Street Community Garden transformed a vacant lot into a vibrant, community-led space supporting 15 plots. For just $25 per year, neighborhood residents can cultivate their own plots, growing culturally significant foods while building connection, improving community health, and strengthening local resilience. PUSH's community gardens play a key role in advancing their mission of community control, economic justice, and environmental sustainability. For the safety and privacy of gardeners, guests are invited to view the spaces from outside the fence.

Rader Garden - 1547 Love Rd, Grand Island

10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Sustainable living practices continue at the Rader Garden-Farm.  Raised beds are full of vegetables, flowers and herbs. Chickens and rabbits contribute fertilizer and meat.  Experimentation with three new hugelkultur beds are continuing in the back garden, along with fruit trees and other food perennials. See what can be accomplished in a small suburban homestead. 

Tribo Garden – 14 Claremont Ave, Town of Tonawanda 14223

10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

My Town of Tonawanda garden is very small, so I must be economic with the space used to produce fresh fruits and vegetables.  Wooden fences support Concord grape vines, which are used for snacking and making pies.  Wire trellises suspend Niagara grapes, which are used for making wine, and to provide shade for the koi pond.  Hops, for making beer, are grown vertically up the back of the house.  Raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries, for snacking and making pies, grow along the edges.  Frank Lloyd Wright inspired raised beds overflow with peppers and tomatoes, for making fresh pasta sauce and salsa.  A small herb garden provides essentials for my kitchen.

Urban Fruits & Veggies - 117 Zenner St., Buffalo

11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Buffalo Go Green/Urban Fruits & Veggies is an urban agriculture organization.  We are growers, and healthy food distributors with an overarching mission of wellness & nutrition education in the WNY Region.

Wilson Street Farm - 360 Wilson St

10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

‍Since 2009 we have been growing and selling vegetables on Buffalo's East side, seeking to be a part of bringing peace and hope to a struggling neighborhood. We sold our last CSA's in 2020 and switched our focus to intentionally building a healthier, more biodiverse island in a neighborhood of neglect. This intentional approach to agriculture provides much needed green space and food for people, birds, insects, and animals, as well as an area of quiet and peace - precisely what our society needs in this age of instant digital everything and its accompanying mental illness and purposelessness. We want our farm to be a living metaphor of redemption, and an example of what husbandry was meant to look like.

We offer garden beds for lease for folks who would like to grow their own flowers or vegetables but who don't have enough space to do so. Please email us at wilsonstreeturbanfarm@gmail.com for more information.

272 Hudson St., Buffalo

How does a pay-as-you-can restaurant actually work? Come hear from Big Big Table's staff and board about what a day in the cafe looks like and why our organization decided on this particular model to increase food access on Buffalo's Lower West Side. We'll share stories from our community, dive into the challenges of nonprofit restaurant operations, and offer ways you can get involved yourself. Come with questions, and stick around afterward for PAYC lunch service!

223 Broad St., Tonawanda

Join us for a practical look at how to maximize food production on an urban lot—even with limited time and space. Drawing from real systems used on our farm, we’ll explore strategies like raised bed gardening, perennial food forests, mushroom cultivation, many composting methods, as well as growing on a green roof. We’ll also discuss how to integrate gardening into your daily life in a way that feels rewarding rather than overwhelming—helping you achieve meaningful yields without burnout.  

360 Wilson St.

Hidden within the natural order are interactions among organisms modeling how human community could work for the mutual benefit of all. What lessons could we learn from nature about resurrecting struggling local neighborhoods?  (20-30 min. talk)

272 Hudson St., Buffalo

Attendees can visit the café for lunch and take home a free vegetable seedling. The Lugar Hermoso de Pedro Community Garden across the street will also be open for visitors.

387 Massachusetts Ave., Buffalo

Did you know that bees have personality? Mason bees are solitary, native bees that work alone.  Learn how they seal up their tunnel nests with clay to protect their eggs.  We’ll talk about their life cycle and how home gardeners can provide man-made habitats for mason bees and how to select plants that help them do their jobs as “super pollinators.”

117 Zenner St., Buffalo

Presented in Collaboration with UB Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab

The city of Buffalo is home to a thriving urban agriculture movement which includes residents growing vegetables at home, community gardens that serve entire neighborhoods, and larger commercial and not-for-profit urban farms. Beyond providing nutritious food, sites of urban agriculture nourish our city’s communities in ways that often go unacknowledged. 

How do growing spaces support physical and mental health? And how can policymakers ensure these benefits are equitably distributed? Facilitated by a team of researchers with the UB Food Lab, this interactive workshop will explore the myriad benefits of urban agriculture on community health in the city of Buffalo.

223 Broad St., Tonawanda

Gather around the big table and learn how to design a functional polyculture pairing of plants to fulfill each layer and function of a food forest. You'll leave this workshop prepared to add your own guild to your garden, whether your space is big or small - it can fit a guild.  Space is limited to 12.  First come, first served.

Tour only, space is limited

Enjoy an approximately one hour walk through our mushroom farm. You’ll learn the history of the buildings and the farm, even the life cycle of mycelium - from inoculation through waste stream management.  If you bring a bag, you’re welcome to take home free mushroom substrate for your garden.  Our retail space will be open, and you can buy products ranging from fresh mushrooms to mushroom chili crisp to refreshing mushroom based drinks to crispy mushroom nuggets to our mushroom coffee.

Check back for ticket link on August 1!

387 Massachusetts Ave., Buffalo

MAP’s farm manager will lead a tour of this urban farm, including fields, small orchards, chickens and bees. 

1698 Genesee St., Buffalo

Community Bakes are a day where people from all walks of life with a wide-range of experiences in baking and cooking come together to create delicious foods using a wood-fired cob oven. It is a time to share, connect and most importantly eat.

Participants are encouraged (not expected) to BYOD (bring-your-own-dough), but can also bring anything that goes into any oven including meats, vegetables, pastries and more. At the start of the event, the oven will be its hottest, ideal for pizzas/flatbreads. Over time the oven will gradually cool, opening the door to bake breads, roast vegetables and sear meats.

Come break bread with us at Groundwork Market Garden!

98 Luksin Dr., Tonawanda

This talk will discuss how and why to grow food-producing native trees and shrubs from seed. Against the fallacy of rugged individualism, we will also discuss strategies for increasing native food production through trading, sharing, and neighborhood growing co-ops.

Diefendorf Meadow, outdoors, UB South Campus (parking on the Diefendorf Loop)

Join Professor Joyce Hwang for a behind-the-scenes discussion about an installation of pollinator habitats, co-created with UB Architecture students, and with UT Austin faculty Nerea Feliz and her students. Initially commissioned by Brooklyn Botanic Garden in NYC, this project was relocated to UB South Campus at the end of 2024.

14 Claremont Ave., Tonawanda

My Town of Tonawanda garden provides many of the ingredients for making my own beer and wine.  Wire trellises suspend Niagara grapes, which are used for making wine.  Centennial hops, for making beer, are grown vertically up the back of the house.  Stop by and hear about my adventures and misadventures in the home beer brewing and winemaking processes. 

2489 Whitehaven Rd., Grand Island

Come enjoy a child-friendly native plant and wildlife forage. It’s a fun format for exploring nature and learning how plants and animals interact.  Fill out the bingo card to win a wildlife-themed prize! 

Or explore on your own.  Pick up a map and information at the Alt Nature Center for a self-guided tour.  Explore the native gardens and the preserve’s meadow habitat to learn about native plants species and some local foraging species.  Using wild plants as herbs and foods is becoming increasingly popular, and the sustainable gathering of wild foods—greens, roots, berries, nuts, mushrooms, and more—connects you with nature while enhancing self-reliance.  Through a self-guided tour you’ll discover a few common edibles you can find in your yard, and learn some basics of how to forage safely and ethically, and what to pick when.  

Our Farmstead was founded in 1870 and the Preserve was recently established as a protected 40-acre habitat for wildlife and education. Our historic one-room schoolhouse serves as the Alt Nature Center, where we provide education to promote compassionate coexistence with wildlife and ecological gardening to promote biodiversity and healthy habitats.

36 Brewster St., Buffalo

 We will offer tours with our farmers and tasting of some of our produce, possibly a 'guess that herb' game. We are also open to tour groups.

317 Ensminger Rd., Tonawanda

We plan to offer short, informal tours of the worm farm and a brief composting/soil health talk throughout the day.

0 Gittere St., Buffalo

Visitors will be given a tour of the compost site at their request.

70 W. Delavan Ave., Buffalo

Our Farm Manager will be onsite at the farmhouse throughout the day wearing her 5 Loaves Farm shirt to help answer questions and distribute information about the farm. 

203 Rogers Ave, Tonawanda 

Kids are welcome, it's a shared space for food and kids play

212 Best St., Buffalo

UPick worms, fresh herbs+veggies & UDig NY natives & perennials, seeds, & nature crafts.

Children can make JUMBO BUBBLES and use magnifying glasses to inspect our pollinator buffets for monarch caterpillars and eggs! UPick worms, fresh herbs+veggies & UDig NY natives & perennials, seeds, & nature crafts.

1547 Love Rd, Grand Island

Special event: baby rabbit petting all day.

Details Available Soon!