Kumpula School Garden

Come visit our garden for children and young people

Whenever the gates of the school garden are open, you are welcome to visit! The idyllic garden milieu features cultivation patches and grass areas, an apple tree grove and a small forest.

Kumpula School Garden is located near the intersection of Mäkelänkatu and Koskelantie, next to the Kumpula allotment garden. Many people confuse Kumpula School Garden with Kumpula Botanic Garden (next to the university campus), so make sure that you head to the address Vähänkyröntie 3-6.

Summer café, camps, harvest sales and summer chickens Café Raparperimeri is open in the summer season. The café employs young people aged 16–17. We use own crops and wild vegetables to make our freshly baked goods and vegetarian treats. The summer café provides a variety of yard and board games and events organised by young people. The Gardening Association for Children and Youth holds camps at the school garden in the summer season and sells its crops in August and September.

In the summer season, the school garden features summer chickens tended by a volunteer group consisting of local residents.

School and daycare centre visits

In May and August–September, Kumpula School Graden provides comprehensive, activity-based and experiential nature school programmes for comprehensive school pupils and upper secondary education students. Kumpula School Garden is a certified member of the national LYKE nature school network. For more information, please see the pages for school and daycare centre visits (in Finnish).

Working or volunteering at the school garden

Every year, the school garden hires young people and adults for various jobs in the garden, camps, café and camp kitchen. The vacancies can be found on the following websites: · Vacancies at the Gardening Association for Children and Youth (in Finnish) · Vacancies at youth services (Choose your field of profession: library, youth, sports and cultural work).

Interested in volunteering as a gardener or an assistant instructor at camps? If you join us for at least a week (6 h/day), you will receive a certificate that will be useful when looking for work. Volunteers are provided with food free of charge. For more information, please see the volunteering pages (in Finnish).

Facility reservations at Kumpula School Garden

If you would like to reserve facilities at Kumpula School Garden, please contact the Gardening Association for Children and Youth.

Reserve a facility: tilavaraukset[at]lastenpuutarha.fi For more information on reservations at the school garden, click here (page in Finnish).

General information

The area is substance-free and smoke-free. Please do not walk in the cultivation areas or go inside the greenhouses or growing tunnel, thank you! Please respect the plants and animals in the area and do not collect or damage them. Pets are welcome in the school garden, but please keep them on a leash.

Kumpula School Garden is owned by the City of Helsinki. Käpylä Comprehensive School also has its own cultivation patch in the school garden.