Hello fellow community gardeners; Accustomed to experiencing cold and blustery weather at this time of the year; we have had overcast, rainy weather for the past 2 months. But a little sunshine comes our way on occasion! And we say Kudos to Cheryl Dow for her work researching our gardens! Thought you might like to review her work - here's the executive summary and website; http://www.cityfarmer.org/WaterlooDowCG.html
Here's a link to our webpage: www.region.waterloo.on.ca/ph click on resources, click on community gardens Benefits and Barriers to Implementing and Managing Well Rooted Community Gardens in Waterloo Region, Ontario By CHERYL LYN DOW 4cld1 at qlink.queensu.ca Copyright ? Cheryl L. Dow, 2006 A report submitted to the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Queen's University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Urban and Regional Planning (M.Pl.) Queen's University Kingston, Ontario, Canada August 2006 On this web page we have placed an Executive Summary. The complete 165 page thesis can be downloaded here. (PDF 3.4 MB) Benefits and Barriers to Implementing and Managing Well Rooted Community Gardens in Waterloo Region, Ontario EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The objective of this study was to determine planners' and community garden leaders' perceived benefits and barriers to implementing and managing community gardens in the Region of Waterloo and to develop recommendations that planners and garden leaders can implement to help foster well rooted gardens in the Region. The report is qualitative in nature. Fifteen community garden leaders and six planners (including regional, environmental, land use, policy and parks and recreation) participated in semi-structured individual interviews that lasted between half an hour and one and a half hours. The analysis indicated that both planners and community garden leaders perceived community gardens as offering a number of benefits to the Region as a whole, to communities in the Region, and to individual gardeners participating in community gardening. These benefits are summarized in the table below. Community Garden Leaders' and Planner Interview Participants' Perceived Benefits of Community Gardens Regional: beautification of Region, gardens supporting communities, fostering healthy citizens. Community: friendships, enhanced sense of community, family bonding, building neighbourliness, increasing feelings of safety, creating community pride, promoting sharing. Individual: stress relief, education, exercise, independence, skill development, pride, food security, and economic savings. Environmental: reduction in energy costs, creating biodiversity, increasing pervious surfaces, improving air and water quality, reducing driving trips, beautifying the environment and promoting sustainability. Food Security: inexpensive local organic food fosters independence among vulnerable groups, local food production becomes possible for community gardeners. Faith: foster community outreach, create a stable volunteer base. Health: foster connections with natural processes, create opportunities for physical exercise, relaxation, and stress relief. In addition to the identification of perceived benefits, the analysis also indicated that community garden leaders have a number of perceived implementation and on-going management challenges which threaten the success of their community gardens. The top five perceived implementation barriers and the top five perceived on-going management barriers are summarized in the tables below. Top 5 Implementation Challenges Identified by Community Garden Leaders Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) Advertising to Gardeners Land Education/Knowledge Infrastructure Top 5 On-Going Community Garden Management Challenges Identified by Community Garden Leaders Human Resource "Gardener" Management Finding Supports Maintenance and Infrastructure Pests Vandalism Garden leaders and planners provided their views on 1) how a regional community garden coordinator and 2) how urban planners can support community gardens in the Region. Hope you enjoy your Holiday Season! Carol Popovic R.N., B.Sc.N., Region of Waterloo Public Health 99 Regina St S., Wloo On. N2J4V3 Tele: (519) 883-2004 ext 5336 Fax 883-2241 e-mail: plcarol at region.waterloo.on.ca -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20061130/035a6c09/attachment.html
