Employees dig in as company gardens grow

Are your office perks dwindling? How about asking for a garden? Dozens of company gardens are sprouting nationwide and while they may not be as desirable as pay raises, workers welcome this perk, the New York Times reports.

“It takes the politics out of the job,” Sheila Golden, a senior manager at PepsiCo, told the Times. “Everybody is on the same level in the garden.”

“Our employees envisioned this garden as a catalyst to integrate healthful, locally grown herbs and vegetables into their everyday lives,” PepsiCo’s chief executive officer Indra Nooyi said in a press release. The company opened the organic employee-run garden last May with 58 plots of herbs and vegetables.
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care in Wellesley, Mass., partnered with Green City Growers to start an organic garden in 2009. The first harvest was donated to Second Helping, a Greater Boston Food Bank program, according to WickedLocal.com.

Google, Yahoo and Sunset magazine also have green spaces for employees, the Times reports.

At USA TODAY’s office park in McLean, Va., we have a softball field, tennis court and gym for employees, but no place to show off our green thumbs. Should we ask?