Starting Community Gardens

Sites for Community Gardening

Setting up communal gardens n urban and suburban areas isn't just about planting seeds and fruit trees. Theres often a lot of communication and negotiation to do before we can get our hands in the soil! Here are some ideas for starting community gardens in backyards, housing estates, schools, workplaces and on public land, followed by some practical tips for assessing if a site is actually good for gardening.

The Backyard Community Garden

An easy option for starting a community garden is using land someone already has access to, like their backyard! Often peopl are willing to share their garden with others who dont have a yard, in exchange for help setting up and looking after it. The benefits of having people around to care for and look after your garden when you are away or busy shouldn't be underestimated. Yards with too much space for the residents needs, and yards of older people finding it harder to maintain them are both good options for shared and community gardens. Easy, private access is a good too, like a driveway or path that leads to the garden without disturbing residents.

Housing Estates and Units

Housing developements and units are often surrounded by shared green space, looked after by the body corporate. As none of the residents have their own space for gardening these areas are perfect for setting up community gardens.

Workplace gardens

Work places are seldom considered as gardening spaces, but often have large areas of unused land that can benefit greatly from orchard and garden planting, and people can often spend more waking hours at their workplace than at home. Its always worth asking.

School Gardens

Often local schools will already have gardening projects, sometimes underfunded and in real need of help! Its also common for schools to share some of their space with parents and community members in exchange for helping with the space.

Community Gardens on Public Land

Even in the most dense urban areas there are always stretches of unused public land waiting to be converted to gardens. Common sites are along train lines, bike paths and roads, beside creeks and rivers, under power lines and on lots that for some reason are left vacant. Look around where you live and there is bound to be something that fits this description. Public parks are sometimes underused, and can be greatly improved by adding a food garden.

Community Gardens

Starting a community garden on public land will involve, at some stage, talking to whoever is responsible for it. This could be the transport department, the water authority or someone else, but your local council is probably the best place to start. The process can can vary from speedy approval to years of paperwork or flat-out rejection! its really highly dependent on where you are, so its probably best to speak to another community garden group nearby who has been successful to see how they went about it.

Once approaved, local councils can connect plumbing, build fences, supply resource, grants and other contributions to your project. They do sometimes mandate high, locked fences that might not help in building a shared communal atmosphere.

Guerilla Gardens

If its seems unlikely you can get permission to start a garden, but would be a real beneficial to you hood if you did, you could just go ahead and start one!

Without fences and infrastructure or paperwork, the garden will be cheap and easy to start, and you can concentrate on the task of growing food. The main downsides to this strategy are uncertainty about tenure to the land and lack of irrigation facilities.

A friendly neighbor can alleviate the problem of water supply, but the uncertainty about the land will probably linger. Planting trees that will grow large and beautiful will make the act of removing the garden a lot more difficult than just clearing a vegetable bed.

Not getting permission from the council means that you need to take on more responsibility for the decision, and need to think about who you will impact and talk to them if possible. Usually, most people will be delighted by a beautiful, productive addition to their neighborhood.

It's also important to remember that as guerrilla gardens are so easy to start, groups will have less invested in them, and might not keep up the work! After the first lettuce crop goes to seed the garden may start to become an eyesore, and a problem that someone will eventually have to deal with...

Again, planting trees and other perennials gives the garden more longevity, and if given less attention will still grow into a productive orchard or food forest.

Assessing potential garden sites

When choosing a site the main things to consider are sunlight, access to water and competition from nearby vegetation. In some places strong winds, soil contamination and vehicle pollution may also be an issue.

Sun and Shade

In temperate climates its is really useful to know how light changes through the day and with the seasons.

• The sunny side (north for the southern hemisphere,
  south for the northern) is the best place for sun in winter. Deciduous
  trees and vines can be used here to filter some of the harsh summer sun
  but let winter light through.
• The shady sides (south in the southern
  hemisphere, north in the northern) have full winter shade and some
  summer morning and afternoon sun. This is a difficult area for
  gardening, so evergreen trees that will grow up into the light are a
  good option.
• The eastern side  is a great place for vegetable
  gardens as it gets enough light but misses the scorching afternoon sun.
• The western side will often need shade trees to block the afternoon sun.

Deciduous trees and vines are really useful in providing summer
shade and letting light through in winter. Good deciduous shade trees
include apples, pears, figs, stonefruit, persimons, pommegranite,
mulberries, almonds and walnuts. Choose them according to what grows
well in your region. Grape vines on trellises are great, and with
winter pruning will let through most of the light. Hops die back to the
ground every winter and vigorously regrow in spring.

Water

In many places water in catchments is at all time low levels, and we
need to look for other sources besides mains
supply, while also using plants more suitable to our region's natural
rainfall. Greywater and rainwater are two underused sources.

Look for sites that can be gravity fed with water from showers or
laundry, diverted downpipes and run-off from other hard surfaces like
concrete driveways and paths. See Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Oasis Greywater Design for ideas.

Vegetation

Large trees on a property can be a real problem for growing food
productively, especially those with extensive, competetive surface
roots, or thick canopies that block light. Look for sites away from
large trees.