Hi Jane, Community gardens are awesome and I don't want to divert your energy if a community garden is what you really want to make but by the sounds of your email you are interested people gardening their own back yards. Community gardens don't have to be in a communal place. My recommendation is to find a group of people who is really interested in gardening (with or without knowledge) and to start a weekly group setting up gardens together in your backyards. It is amazing what you can achieve with a few people and if the group reaches ten or more a vegie patch is almost instant work.
When you feel confident with starting small gardens your group could make gardens at people's homes who may not have the ability themselves due to age/sickness/lack of funds... And you could have the group upkeep these every fortnight or so. Many garden supply companies could be interesting in supporting through plant/soil/monetary...donations. A few years ago I lived in a city where I used to be involved in a Permaculture group and we would do this. It was so rewarding and because we were all working for each other and the community there was a beautiful sense of companionship and we met so many people from all walks of life. It is a really quiet and, I believe, deeply affecting way to serve the environment and community. I think there is someone on the list who belongs to a US group which currently does a version of this which sounded really interesting a while ago under the name 'garden angels'...? By all means make a community garden but while you go through the planning and building process for this the dirt may be there just waiting for you to pick up a spade... And the community garden could become a meeting place for the gardeners who have space at their own homes... In peace, Tamsin Melbourne Australia On 14/7/03 12:45 PM, "Kaitlyn S." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hello, > I've been on this list for a little while now and have been reading all > the great discussions going on. I'm very interested in starting a community > garden in my neighborhood and may soon (within the next two or three years) > have the chance to help design and get one going. I live in a working-class > suburban type area and would love to use the garden to teach others how to > grow vegetables and they could then transfer that knowledge to their own > backyards (right now I have my own small 6x6 veggie garden in my yard but I > admit I still have a lot to learn myself). Anyway, I managed to convince my > county commissioners to build a park in our neighborhood for the kids(they > allocated $200,000 for the project), and after speaking to the guy in charge > of the project in the parks dept. he said it would be possible to put in a > community garden (as a part of the park) as long as they had the spare land > to do so. So how many square feet do you think I can estimate would be > needed for a small community garden? If they do have the space-how should > we design the garden? Basically, my neighbors and I would have the unique > opportunity of designing the garden ahead of time and starting completely > from scratch. So I'm looking for ideas on what we might need and putting it > all to the best possible use. Such as: what type of fencing is best? > How should we initially amend the soil, what should we use? How wide should > the path to walk through the garden be? What would you do if you had this > opportunity??? > > Janel > ______________________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden
