What is a Community Garden?
A community garden is a joint effort amongst interested parties to create a green space where all people involved share part of the upkeep and garden rewards. Many different groups of people may come together to form such a garden including homeowner associations, religious organizations, social service organizations, gardening clubs, corporations, and neighborhood groups, to name a few. Most community gardens are designed for growing food, vegetables, and fruits. Community vegetable gardens may be in individual or family plots and often support food banks, church missions, or shelters. Some gardens are based on a fee structure where you rent a garden space and manage your own plot.
How to Start a Community Garden
The first step in starting a shared, or community, garden involves gathering like-minded people together. If you are just getting started, you may want to call an informational and organizational meeting inviting people to learn more about creating community gardens. Once you have an interested group put together, you will need to make some decisions about where the garden should be located, how planning, membership, and management will take place, and assess the financial needs so that fundraising can take place if needed. It is important to spend enough time at the planning stage so that things go smoothly once the garden is up and operating. The best approach is to form a board and even a site coordinator if your garden is large. If you require community garden information to get things rolling, think about visiting an existing garden or consulting your local Cooperative Extension Office where they are often willing to provide support and information.
What to Plant in a Community Garden Plot
Once the garden is created, you can plant anything you desire in your community garden. Obviously, you should choose plant varieties that do best in your selected region. If you have individual and family plots in your garden versus one big garden, you may need to set some restrictions on what is grown. For example, you would not want someone planting mint that might take over the entire garden. Be sure to set your guidelines on what is permissible in your membership rules so that you don’t run into any problems. A community garden can be a very rewarding project but is one that takes excellent organization and management in order to reach its full potential.
