Community Gardens

[anders8]

Hey! I live in a small community, with plenty of farms at a small distance away. I have planted various things (houseplants, flowers, veggie gardens) with some relative success for a few years now, and I've been looking into the idea of starting a community garden.

I know that that alone is a huge undertaking and a very vast subject, but I'm wondering if anyone has actively participated in community gardening, or started one up. I'm looking for any kind of stories/advice/thoughts on the idea in general.

Thanks in advance!

 

[noodle]

I haven't actually participated in one but there are several around my city. I've walked through them a couple of times as they have pathways that make excellent shortcuts. I think they're a wonderful idea!

I think it would help to have quite a dedicated group of people who are happy to put in a fair bit of effort in the beginning to get things running. Once the garden is reasonably established I imagine the work wouldn't be as involved. In my city they often have groups of young children visit with their school class to work on the community garden a little. Everyone benefits from that as the garden grows and the children learn valuable gardening lessons.

Hopefully your local council could provide a grant to get the project started? Here there are various community project grants you can apply for. Even a little bit of money can go a long way to get something like this established.

 

[anders8]

Oh, I hadn't thought about looking into the local grants! Sometimes I glance through things at a grander scale, but I'll have to ask around! Luckily I work in a town building and have access to a lot of the people here as well.

I think a good portion of my interest stems from a similar experience when I was younger, and visiting the community gardens and centers where I grew up.

I've been doing some research, and I think the best bet is to start small, around here at least. Just because the town is on the small side already, and I'm going to have to garner interest first!

Any other advice out there? :]

 

[Mr_Yan]

You could be looking at an unpaid part time job.

Last two seasons I've been an active "staff" member at my community garden. This is hosted by our church and we have a gentleman's agreement that at least half the produce grown there gets donated to the local food bank. That said this pantry has a REALLY good system to distribute the fresh produce fast. We started big and have gotten a little bigger. So big that the university extension office said it would never work. 100 raised beds 12' x 4', about 9 in ground plots 25' x 20' and about 6 in ground plots 25' x 75'. There is a group of "staff" that keep the water pigs topped off, lock the shed, mow around the beds, keep the tillers working. Not to mention the big work days - annual compost filling on the beds, tilling the beds, and a fall clean up. I usually end up driving the tractor and this year we also had two guys driving walk behind loaders (dingos) filling beds plus another half dozen using wheelbarrows.

Our neighborhood association got a $2500 grant to start a community garden on a vacant lot where the city had razed a house. It would have worked nicely but the city screwed something up and didn't file the lien on the property so we had to hold off. There are other vacant lot gardens like this around the city and they cover the whole spectrum. Some are thriving, some are only one or two people with several beds, some are nothing but overgrown abandoned raised beds.

Every community garden has a different culture and format.
Some have thriving communitys.
Some are hated by their neighbors (read a story where the neighbor sprayed the whole community garden with roundup one night)
Theft is very common - people never read the Little Red Hen
Garden abandonment is common - what will you do to clean up someone's weeds next to your bed?

 

[Mr_Yan]

Oh yeah, I took this year off from regular volunteering as we had our third kid in June. Three kids under five makes working in a community garden hard but I still have one raised bed and one squash patch up there.

 

[Susan]

Community Gardens are very popular around this area especially in the low income areas where they all get together and grow these gardens. Grants are given out to get them started. Everybody is in charge of their own veggies and they must weed and take care of their own section of the garden. It is all done on a volunteer bases and they have been very successful. They keep them fenced and locked because of the high risk of theft and yes you do get the hatred from some neighbors who purposely destroy these gardens. They usually make use of their neighbor watch to make sure this doesn't happen. I am not sure how the gardens work in your are but I think it is a great idea and I would definitely look into a grant if I were you. Every little bit with help. It is a bit commitment and will require a lot of time.

 

[noodle]

The idea of purposefully destroying a community garden seems to crazy to me! I know there are people out there who are like that but it's just so sad. It does seem like coming up with a plan for protecting it might be necessary. Something like a fence & lockable gate in case it's needed.