What is a community garden:
It is a piece of land that is gardened and maintained by everyone in your community. Anyone is able to work in the garden and contribute to it. There are many benefits to working in a community garden and it is a great way to improve your individual well being and the well being of your community.
Benefits of a community garden:
- They can bring fresh fruits/ vegetables to the community.
- Allows for the community to come together and it can provide a sense of belonging.
- You can meet new people who share the same interests as you.
- It can help improve people’s mental and physical health by going outside.
How to start a community garden:
- If you are looking to start a community garden, make sure that you ask around and find people who would be interested in starting a garden with you. It is important that you find a group of people that are willing to contribute and help work on it together.
- Finding the right location can be tricky. You should start thinking about whether you want to start it in a public park, or on private property. It could take months all the way to a year to get approval for a community garden, so start talking to people within the community to begin planning for the garden. As well you want to make sure that the location gets lots of sunlight and has good soil for planting. Consider testing the soil before planting or using raised garden beds.
- Hold a community meeting or gather everyone’s contact information to make sure that everyone is on the same page, as well as to see if anyone would like to have a more important role in the community garden.
- In order to start a community garden and to keep it alive you need money. You can either ask around for donations, start a small fundraiser, or you can talk to local businesses and see if they are willing to give you a discount on gardening tools, pots, seeds etc. You can also ask around and see if people within the community are interested in donating old garden tools that they don’t mind sharing within the community.
The most difficult part of a community garden is starting it. Once it is established you may see more people within the community opening up and working in the garden, sharing old tools, or contributing seeds. This is the great part of a community garden, it brings people together. In the end it will definitely be worth the hard work put into starting a community garden!
