I just found this forum. Great! I've been a community gardener for many years. I have a two www.kirbyplant.blogspot.com and www.psumcearthgarden.blogspot.com that have info that may be of interest.
I also co-edited a book Community Gardening published by Brooklyn Botanic Garden www.bbg.org. It's also described in my blog.
I'll share more later and pursue some questions as soon as I can. This is an extremely important forum due to lots of need and interest now for growing safe, health food.
Thanks for having this forum!
Ellen Kirby Winston-Salem, NC Zone 7
Community gardening information
Here's more about the book. It has great photos and tons of info including profiles of community gardens all over the Us and Canada. I think you will find it helpful re: growing food, soil improvement, benefits, how to start, etc.
Of course, now is the time when things are slow to really get our gardens going.
Welcome sawpalm!
Thanks for the links. I look forward to reading the material in more depth this weekend.
I've participated in 6 "formal" community gardens in my lifetime, and a few informal ones.
Most have run along smoothly and been wonderful experiences. One of the current ones in which we participate suffers from overzealous and heavy handed administrators who have run off most of the original participants who built the garden. The administrators want a manicured garden. Some of the plot leaseholders want to experiment with mini permaculture and companion planting schemes that don't quite fit the admins concept of manucured. I'm somewhat mediating in the middle of this one, and spending more time in the laissez faire community garden.
Do you have any tips to share in maintaining the balance between community garden administration and the actual gardeners?
Hi Garden_Mermaid,
It sounds as if there is a need for all parties to work together, perhaps discuss, what the goals of the group and the individuals have. Perpaps just clarifying expectations will help. I can understand the perspective of people who want the garden to "look good" to the public, especially if it's on public land (park, vacant lot, etc.) And, on the other hand, gardeners want autonomy so they can design, plant, harvest their own plants. Some gardens solve this problem by allowing individuals designated areas (plots and such) but everyone is required to help with the more general areas where flowers and ornamental plants are used to beautify the area and especially to make the garden have aesthetic appeal to newcomers, passersby, the public, etc. Good luck. Hope the problems get solved.
The book on Community Gardening has some good suggestions.
sawpalm, all of the other community gardens in which I have participated have been a democracy of gardeners. We had a list of requirements from the city or landlord that needed to be met, with all other decisions discussed in open meetings and the groups voting on the actions to take. Those of us that put in our sweat equity to build this garden were very surprised to here the "president" of the garden announce that our garden was not a democracy. It's been a whole new experience. A dissappointing one to be sure. I'm sticking it out with this particular one in the hopes that those in charge will come to their senses and consider the democratic model of garden administration as the other gardens do. We'll see what happens. Our other garden may not be as fancy, but it has great community spirit.
Good for you....you might want to look at the blog for the Schaef Earth Garden in Brooklyn. Are there other blogs on community gardens out there? Ours is www.psumcearthgarden.blogspot.com
Thanks for the information, sawpalm. I look forward to reading it soon.
I recently joined a great group of people who are starting an urban community garden in our city. As so many families are struggling at this time, I think it's going to be an especially positive thing for them. We're thinking of doing part of it as square-foot gardening and part of it in the existing dirt. As soon as the temps rise a bit, we'll be able to take soil samples and find out what we're really dealing with.
I'm sure I'll have questions eventually, so please stand by. :o)
Happy gardening!
We use a modified square foot gardening method in our community garden plots.
The newer edition of square foot gardening recommends using a custom soil mix but the older versions didn't not call for that. Square foot gardening is really a planting plan. As long as you amend your soil to suit the crops you want to grow, you can use that method directly on the soil.
Yeah, I've read that a lot of people on here have had good experiences with square foot gardening. Without having read the book yet (I will!) I do have one question: What about ventilation? Do you need to take any steps to make sure that moisture doesn't get trapped in all that lush growth?
Another question, for sawpalm or whoever would like to chime in: We don't have the soil test results back yet, but we're guessing the soil isn't great. (We're working on how to get multiple truckloads of compost over there.) But with the soil being untended for so long, I'm worried about grub worms. Should we just eye the soil when we till it? I don't want to lose our corn and pumpkin crops to grub worms. What's the best way to deal with this (if, in fact, it's even a concern) before the damage is done?
I've read that adding beneficial nematodes is an option. But we can't afford to treat something without first diagnosing it.
Sorry to be slow in answering. Don't worry about the ventilation problem. I find that the diversity of the crops helps with all kinds of problems. Try it...that's the easiest way to discover. I've never had a problem with grub worms.
I hope you have proceeded with your planting. It's still a great option to start with either sees or transplants in your area. There's a great little planting program on Gardener's Supply to look at in terms of how many of each item to plant per square. let us know how it goes.