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Vatican Vegetable Garden Goes 100% Organic
Confirmed
In Short: The Vatican's vegetable garden, once known as 'the pope's garden,' has transitioned to organic farming, reflecting a commitment to sustainable practices.
Sometimes known as 'the pope's garden,' the Vatican's vegetable plot has always been a defining feature of the Vatican Gardens, created primarily to provide sustenance for the Apostolic Palace, according to forestry expert Stefano Giampaolo. Now, the garden is more accurately understood as part of the larger Vatican Gardens, which cover roughly half of Vatican City at 57 acres.
Gilberto Bianchi, the gardener responsible for the orchard and vegetable patch since 2008, explains that running a completely organic garden presents challenges, such as managing aggressive insects with natural predators in the soil. 'Clearly, running a completely organic vegetable garden presents challenges, partly because insects are aggressive, and we use natural predators in the soil to control them,' Bianchi said.
The garden includes garlic, basil, and a Peruvian variety of chili peppers known for its intensity, and it is part of an ongoing effort to eliminate all synthetic fertilizers and pesticides from the Vatican's care of its land. 'It’s a process — the transformation of all the Gardens into organic ones,' Giampaolo said, adding that the gardeners hope to one day eliminate all synthetic fertilizers and pesticides from their care of the entire Vatican territory.
The excess produce from the garden is given to a Vatican soup kitchen run by the Missionaries of Charity, and the Benedictine nuns at Mater Ecclesiae Monastery, who pray for the pope, eat the fruit and vegetables grown in the garden and use them to make jams and other food preserves. 'No chemical fertilisers or insecticides are used,' Bianchi noted.
What's confirmed
- Sometimes known as “the pope’s garden,” the vegetable plot “has always been a defining feature of the Vatican Gardens because, in fact, the Vatican Gardens were originally created primarily for that purpose — to provide sustenance for the [Apostolic] Palace,” Stefano Giampaolo, a forestry expert and head of the Gardens and Environment Service of the Vatican, told EWTN News.
- Giampaolo explained that now the plot is more accurately understood as the vegetable garden of the Vatican Gardens — an area that covers roughly half of Vatican City at 57 acres.
- According to Gilberto Bianchi, the gardener responsible for the orchard and vegetable patch since 2008, the Vatican has a “desire to respect nature” in how it cares for the plants and trees on its land.
- “Clearly, running a completely organic vegetable garden presents challenges, partly because insects are aggressive, and we use natural predators in the soil to control them,” Bianchi said.
- A vegetable garden and orchard inside the Vatican walls, which historically provided food for the pope’s household, is now cultivated using exclusively organic farming techniques.
- The private garden covers almost a tenth of an acre of cultivable land inside the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery property, where Pope Benedict XVI lived during his retirement and now reside cloistered Benedictine nuns from the Abbey of St.
- | Credit: Hannah Brockhaus/EWTN News The Benedictine nuns at Mater Ecclesiae Monastery, who pray for the pope, eat the fruit and vegetables grown in the garden and use them to make jams and other food preserves.
- The excess produce is given to a Vatican soup kitchen run by the Missionaries of Charity.
What's still developing
- Part of an organic agriculture also means respecting the seasons, he said.
- Stefano Giampaolo, left, head of the Gardens and Environment Service of Vatican City, and expert gardener Gilberto Bianchi, right, the main caretaker of the orchard and vegetable garden commonly known as “the pope’s garden,” share their expertise with EWTN News in the Vatican Gardens on Sept. 9, 2026. | Credit: Hannah Brockhaus/EWTN News “People expect to see a single garden, but in reality, as the name suggests, they are the Vatican Gardens — a collection of gardens,” Giampaolo said.
- Vatican vegetable garden goes 100% organic (By Hannah Brockhaus, EWTN News ) Enter the username or e-mail you used in your profile.