Good questions, Jonathan, and good responses, Tanya. Picking up on things Tanya said, I'd add:
1. Grow in phases. Don't try to do everything all at once - start with a small, successful garden and expand. Take the smallest garden you can imagine, and cut area that in half for your first year. Be sure to put it where there is absolutely reliable water and eight hours or more of sun a day. But I completely agree it is very wise to put it where it can easily expand. 2. You need gardeners. You can't do it for them. Set aside a reasonable space for the garden (see below) and do your homework, but also make sure to include recruiting and sensible guidelines for the human part of the garden right from the start. You, as a planner, probably won't be around to see this through, so find allies in the on-the-ground management (if it exists). 3. Look around where you are. Two parts to this: Most important: Who is doing community gardening in your area (check ACGA's website, state websites, extension, park and recreation, faith-based orgs, non-profits...)? Enlist their help early - they are going to be totally stoked to hear about what you are proposing. Also important: What is your local ecology and food growing calendar? Will the garden be in use all year? When it isn't, what's happening there? Might there be interest in current foodie favs like hoop houses? 4. 2500 residences? Whoa! So, you must have 'open space' and/or 'recreation', not to mention 'landscaping and common lawn areas' in the overall design. Think carefully about siting your garden in the context of all these other factors, before deciding on things such as plot size. Will people walk to the garden or drive? If they drive, where will they park? Is safety a factor? Can it be close to or part of a community center? If it is in the viewscape, can you include a budget for maintenance/lawn folks to keep it looking nice? (Walk to gardens often have smaller plots, 10x10 ft or smaller is common. Drive to gardens are larger, 20x20 plots and up are common. There tends to be a growth curve - first couple of years, nobody may seem interested and it can be quite discouraging, then a garden can take off and suddenly there are long wait lists and people clamoring at the gates. This curve is influenced by the economic and political situation, too.) In community gardening, community comes first - for good reason. Along with the obvious food and health benefits, a community garden can also help you build a sense of community engagement and pride within that big development. I commend you for your vision. Good luck! And talk to as many people as you can - ask two community gardeners, get three opinions. Don Boekelheide Charlotte, NC ________________________________ From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, October 2, 2013 12:00 PM Subject: Community_garden Digest, Vol 1660, Issue 1 Today's Topics: 1. Estimating demand for community garden space (Jonathan Berlin) 2. Re: Estimating demand for community garden space (tanya) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2013 11:21:33 -0700 From: Jonathan Berlin <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Subject: [Community_garden] Estimating demand for community garden space Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I can use some help with planning a community garden for a residential development. This development would have up to 2,500 residences total, and I'd like to set aside enough acreage to meet expected demand. Do you have any experience or advice? 1) A ballpark figure on the percentage of residents in an area that would participate in a community garden would be great. 2) What size do you recommend for individual plots? I've seen that 10x10' and 20x20' are common. 3) Any other suggestions for designing a community garden? Thanks for your help, Jonathan Berlin, MESM Associate Environmental Planner [cid:[email protected]]<http://www.rinconconsultants.com/>Rincon Consultants, Inc. 805 644 4455 EXT 22 www.rinconconsultants.com<http://www.rinconconsultants.com/> Environmental Scientists Planners Engineers Ranked "#1 Best Firm to Work For" - CE News -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20131001/636f7599/attachment.html> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 1626 bytes Desc: image001.png URL: <http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20131001/636f7599/attachment.png> ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2013 12:00:36 -0700 From: tanya <[email protected]> To: Jonathan Berlin <[email protected]> Cc: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Community_garden] Estimating demand for community garden space Message-ID: <CAA-ju_eGGVw2M35EiDFoaJqOBeKRmKoFhCUrd=uDpXe=r-u...@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Interesting questions. I have no data, just some ideas. Will the residents have any space at all to garden around their homes, or is the community space the only option for gardening? I wonder if the local master-gardener program might have an idea about the popularity of gardening, or the level of interest. If I were setting aside land for a garden, I'd set aside as much as possible. I'd expect the demand to increase over the years, as residents see what other people are growing and want to join in. Beginning gardeners can handle small plots. As they get more experience, some gardeners want a lot more space to grow all the seeds they've ordered! If this is a new development, it might help to get an idea of who might be buying in. What kinds of jobs? (If all the adults have a long commute and demanding jobs, then at best they'll be gardening only on weekends, assuming they're not working on the weekends, too.) Lots of small children? At one of the community gardens I belong to, every time a family with small children gets a plot, they're really enthusiastic the first year (or the first month), and then they never come back -- no time. But once the kids are big enough to handle tools, committed families do stick around. So if there are lots of families with small kids, smaller plots might be more popular. On the other hand, if you get a few avid gardeners, they'll enjoy having big plots and will share their bounty. So the best strategy is to have plots of different sizes, from 4x8 to 20x20 or more. It's nice to have fruit trees and a few herb beds for everyone to share. Sometimes the fruit gets picked by one or a few people (or by the roof rats and squirrels!), though. I even know one garden that has a "food forest" of perennial edibles. A picnic table and some chairs will encourage people to stick around, enhancing the "community" part. Some sort of shade structure (tree, pergola, etc.) is nice, too. One hose bib per plot is ideal, but it's possible to have fewer. Communal hoses tend to get trashed, though -- everyone coils them differently and they get kinks and then leaks. If you're in a dry-summer climate, it might be cost-effective in the long run if you offer drip irrigation, or promote it. ? ?Fences and gates are essential, even if they are ?merely symbolic. Gardeners don't want dogs and cats wandering through. The fence and gate mostly mark the boundary. You can post notices to/among gardeners on the fence or on a kiosk near the gate. A community garden is a great place for people to walk, and visiting (without picking) should be encouraged. For dog walkers, a perimeter path is ideal. Having lots of foot traffic cuts down on any vandalism or stealing, too. ?It's essential to have a place for composting (or bins for the city to pick up) and a wide service gate there. It's also nice to have a place where truckloads of compost or mulch can be dumped for gardeners to use, again with a wide service gate, on a road accessible to trucks. Some gardeners will want to have their own compost bins, but many will want a place to put old tomato vines and sunflower stalks at the end of the season.? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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URL: <http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20131002/30d79e6f/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ 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: http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org
