Jaden Scott says the best restaurants and bakeries are the ones with items you can’t find anywhere else. Like East African sweet potato donut holes. Or gluten-free lemon zucchini muffins. These are just two of the goodies offered by Green Garden Bakery, a youth-run business known for its vegetable-based desserts where Jaden, 19, is the head baker.
The bakery grows much of its own vegetables, which are then transformed into their unique baked goods.. Located in Heritage Park, a housing development in Near North Minneapolis, the bakery strives to be accessible to everyone it serves, from products — among the offerings are gluten-free and vegan items — to pricing (they employ a pay-as-you-can model at the farmer’s market).
Metro Blooms has partnered with the bakery since 2023, when we organized a native plant seed-sowing event for bakery youth and Heritage Park residents. We followed up with another seed-sowing event in 2024, and used those plants in a rain garden we planted together near one of the bakery’s vegetable gardens.
Green Garden Bakery has its roots in after-school and summer cooking programs for Heritage Park youth at their community center. In 2014, they started selling desserts to raise money for a victim of a car accident. Today the bakery is based in a converted three-car garage, complete with a commercial kitchen and storefront. A third of the bakery’s profits are reinvested in the community.
This year, many of the staff took part in a condensed version of our Sustainable Landcare Training program. We shared information about native plants and green infrastructure practices like rain gardens (there are many rain gardens in Heritage Park, by the way). Then they helped us plant a pollinator garden at the entrance to Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden.
Though he’s not “super deep into gardening,” Jaden participated in the training partly to learn more about the rain gardens he sees in his community every day. He came away with a better understanding of how they help to filter and clean water and prevent flooding in the parking lots.
For Jaden, it’s one more piece of learning to carry alongside everything he’s picked up through years at Green Garden Bakery, gaining skills in teamwork, being part of a business, contributing to the community — and of course, baking. One of his favorite parts of the job is experimenting with new recipes. He helped develop a Pride Pop Tart with rainbow sprinkles and various jam fillings (currently not offered), and he has some ideas for cinnamon and ube rolls.
Looking ahead, maybe one day his experience will grow into something more. “I have really thought about opening my own restaurant sometime in the future, even if it’s, like, a little small one. I’d really love to do that,” he said.
Order online for delivery or pickup, or find them at local pop-ups and the Mill City Farmers Market. Learn more here.
For Laila Bacon, Environmental and Social Justice Manager at Metro Blooms, working with the youth at Green Garden Bakery turned out to be a mutual learning experience.
“We taught them about our rain gardens and we planted one with them, right by their garden, so we went into their garden and they taught us what vegetables they had and how they grow them,” she said.
Laila said many of the topics we shared about with the youth — native plants, pollinators, how rain gardens help filter water, for example — are not taught in school, and existing training programs often use highly technical language (think “green infrastructure”) that make it harder to learn the ideas. “If someone hasn’t done it before, they will not know what you’re talking about. We make sure our language is as accessible as possible,” she said.
Working with the youth evoked memories for Laila. “It reminds me of when I was their age, participating in a similar program,” she said. “I remember how impactful it was to have young adults come in and support us. The connection was really special.”
— by Aleli Balagtas, Metro Blooms Editor
Our work with Green Garden Bakery has been supported by the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ No Chlld Left Inside program.
