GETTING STARTED...

Planning and starting your community garden

by Russ Grayson + Fiona Campbell

< making a start < challenges < bottom-up approach < let's start planning
< where will we garden? < designing the garden < let's start building
< the management phase < gardening cooking and eating
< your community garden project < useful skills for community garden organisers
< member agreement < full document for printing

MAKING A START

There are two ways to start a community garden… from the bottom up or the top down.

Both approaches work and which one is used depends upon where the proposal for a community garden comes from.

Bottom-up

Working from the bottom-up is the most common:

• a group of people get together and works out what they want
• they approach the local council or some other institution for help in finding land and, perhaps, for other assistance
• when they have gained access to land, they design the garden and start to cultivate it.

This approach builds ‘ownership’ of the community garden because the people who work the garden put in all the effort.

Council, government or professional role

For community workers and local or state government staff, the most constructive role is to assist the community group and guide without controlling it.

Help the gardeners to help themselves.

Top down

The top-down approach is favoured by professionals such as community workers and local government staff:

• the professional workers become interested in the potential of community gardens to build a sense of community or to improve the nutrition of the people they work with
• with their existing contacts with government, schools or churches they obtain land and funding more easily than citizens using the bottom-up approach
• they then have to popularise the idea of the community garden among the target group they believe will use the garden
• if successful - and it might take some time – they then make use of a council landscape architect to design the garden; alternatively – and this might be the better solution because it builds ownership of the garden - they might find someone in the community who can lead a design workshop with the would-be gardeners, turning what could have been a professional-led solution into a participatory process.

The good news is that the top-down approach can succeed if community or local government worker has the patience and persistence to build support for the garden within the community.

Once the idea has been discussed with the local community, it is a good idea is to organise a mini-bus tour of three or four existing gardens. Some councils may help with this.

Be sure to visit gardens which are different so as to expose community members to a range of approaches to community gardening.

Gardeners mulch the path around the first garden bed built at the University of NSW Community Permaculture Garden in eastern Sydney. The garden has been mulched in preparation for planting. Recycled bricks mark the path and garden edges. January 1995.

Employ a coordinator

To increase the chance of the top-down approach working after land has been found, community workers, government or council staff might think about raising funds - perhaps through a grant - to employ a coordinator.

The coordinator would:

• stimulate interest in the garden within the community
• provide basic horticultural training
• guide the garden’s initial development
• if necessary, design the garden.

• basic horticultural knowledge, gained perhaps through practical experience in organic food production or a combination of formal studies plus experience
• integrated design skills such as those gained through Permaculturte Design Course are useful
• importantly, the possession of people skills such as the ability to communicate effectively, to make decisions, solve problems, resolve conflict, coordinate participatory planning and decision making; facilitation skills are indespensible.

CHALLENGES

Community garden organisers face a number of challenges:

• finding land
• convincing the landholder that you will manage the land in a responsible manner
• finding public liability insurance
• managing the site
• accessing training for the gardeners
• raising startup and onging funds
• maintaining the interest of gardeners.

Workshops are a way of increasing the skills of gardeners. Here, at a seed saving workshop, Mabel from Waterloo Estate Community Garden hands seeds to Michel Fanton from The Seed Savers Network, Byron Bay.

Finding land

If you are a community worker, then you might consider the grounds of health or community centres or other community support facilities. The grounds of government housing estates have been made available for community gardens for people living on the estates.

If you are a member of a community group, you can either:

• ask your local council about land which they might be willing to make available
• look around for unused land, then find out who owns it and contact the owner about access.

Building credibility

A well researched and written submission will go a long way to convincing the landholder and your local council staff or elected councillors that your group is responsible.

In your submission, include information such as:

• the purpose of your proposed community garden (eg. building a sense of community; improving family nutrition; environmental improvement etc)
• the objectives of your garden group – what you plan to do to achieve your purpose the beneficiaries of your community garden – who they are (socioeconomic or demographic description); why they deserve to benefit
• benefit of the garden to the local area – environmental improvement, regreening the suburb, safe place for families with children, adult and environmental education, recreation etc
• how the garden will benefit your local government – such as the implementation of council policies on waste minimisation (through composting and use of recycled materials), waste education (waste minimisation and composting classes), Agenda 21, community health programs (access to fresh, nutritious food), access to the space for non-gardeners for passive uses, positive public perception of council support for the garden etc
• an estimated budget for garden development and maintenance and potential sources of funding you have identified (grants, membership fees, fundraising events etc)
• an estimated timeline covering the planning, design and construction phases of your garden’s development; allow plenty of time if the garden is to be constructed by voluntary labour
• risk assessment – what the risks involved in gardening and caring for the site might be and how you will design the site/ educate the gardeners to minimise risk)
  management plan outline - how you will care for the land once the garden is complete
  training and induction of new gardeners
• proposed legal structure for access to land – peppercorn lease etc
• structures for the gardeners to make decisions and solve problems
• community garden liaison person – contact details for a person who will act as a point of contact between council and the gardeners.

Public liability insurance

Public liability provides insurance covers legal liability in the case of a person injuring themselves in the garden and seeking a damages or injury payout in court.

Public liability insurance is paid annually and is expensive. Obtaining funding for insurance can present gardeners with a real challenge. Some gardens may choose not to take out public liability, however they then carry the legal risk.

If your garden is on council land you might ask council if they will extend their public liability insurance to cover it.

Managing the site

How you will manage the garden shoould be outlined in a brief management plan. It should cover activities that need doing regularly, such as:

• mowing the grass
• monitoring the site for noxious or undesirable weeds
• monitoring the site for safety
• maintaining any shared gardening areas
• keeping structures such as tool sheds and pergolas in good repair
• maintaining the aesthetics and tidiness of the site.

Training for gardeners

New gardeners without skills will need training in organic gardening techniques.

This might be obtainable from either experienced community gardeners or from organic gardeners from out of the area.

• soil testing – pH (acidity/ alkalinity, texture, structure)
• methods of soil improvement
• producing compost
• using mulch
• garden construction
• path construction
• plant propagation (starting plants from seeds or cuttings)
• planting patterns (close planting, clustering etc)
• integrated pest management
• irrigation.

Maintaining interest

A characteristic on many community gardens is that participation in the garden fluctuates. Sometimes, there will be a waiting list of people who want to join the garden. Other times there might be so few gardeners that maintaining the site is a challenge.

What you do to maintain a steady participation rate will depend on the circumstances of the gardeners themselves. One approach is to build into the operation of the garden some non-gardening activities such as cooking classes (using produce from the garden), workshops, social, arts and peformance (music, poetry and book readings) events.

Assessing requests in councils

When presented with a request or submission for assistance with a community garden, council staff might assess it by asking whether the proposal:

• could be linked to council policy such as Agenda 21, waste education, open space provision, recreational and health policies
• has addressed risk such as site safety
• identifies how the gardeners will maintain aesthetic qualities appropriate to the use of the site as a garden; council and government landscape designers should remember that, visually, a community garden may be an agricultural rather than an urban park landscape
• will not conflict with adjacent landuses
• will make use of environmentally safe gardening techniques that carry little health risk, such as organic gardening
• will retain public access to the garden grounds relative to the need for opening times and site security, especially if the garden is fenced
• will improve the local natural and social environment through regreening and provision of safe public space
• will reflect positively on council; if council provides substantial support, perhaps the gardeners would agree to council providing a sign bearing the garden’s name, membership information and a statement of support by council.

THE BOTTOM-UP APPROACH

Just where you start planning for a community garden depends upon the circumstances you are faced with, such as whether you have found a parcel of land and whether you have a group of people willing to put in the work of getting a garden going. The starting point will be different for all of us.

The bottom-up approach, however, calls for persistence, patience and planning.

One thing is for sure - you will find that a little thinking and planning now, rather than rushing in, pays off in the longer run. When the time comes to put your submission for land access to council or some other landholder, they will be more impressed and ready to cooperate with a group that has thought through how they would go about designing and managing a community garden.

Get the numbers

Your first task is to get together a group of interested people.

Stimulate interest in your idea:

• organise a public meeting to form a community garden planning team
• contact the local newspaper and community radio station; issue a press release and contact the editor or, if a radio station, the producer of a suitable program to offer an interview
• put up a poster about your plans in the local shopping centre, community centre or health food shop
• do a letterbox drop in your area.

When the planning team has come together, do a skills audit to discover what talents and abilities are available within the membership.

Decide who will be:

• treasurer (to manage the funds you will seek)
• spokesperson (who liaises with the media, landholder and other agencies you will deal with)
• secretary (who acts as a point of contact, handles correspondence and keeps all the records of meetings and other activities in order).

Collect information

Now that you have stimulated interest in a community garden, it is time to take a look at what other gardeners have done.

Organise a car convoy or, if you already have local government support ask about use of a council mini-bus to tour three or four other community gardens. Be sure that the gardens you plan to visit are different from each other so you get to see different designs and different ways of organising community gardens.

On this fact-finding mission you to collect information on:

• how the gardens started
• what type of organisational structure they have
• what they do about public liability insurance
• where they obtain resources (mulch, compost, seeds etc)
• their links to local government
• how they are funded
• how they make decisions, solve problems and resolve conflict
• how they pass on skills to new gardeners and improve their own skills.

Discuss what you have learned and use it to make decisions about how you want to organise and manage your community garden.

LET'S START PLANNING

Now that we have seen how other community gardens are run, it’s time for our group to make a start planning.

The following information should appear in your submission to council or whatever organisation you hope will support your community garden.

Ideas for community gardens: Katoomba community gardeners in the Blue Mountains, NSW, built a mudbrick toolshed/ utility building, a pergola to provide a place to sit out of the hot summer sun and a cob oven with mudbrick seats around it. A galvanised iron water tank stores rainwater from the roof for use in the garden and for drinking. Structues like these can be built at workshops to increase gardener skills. They bring social amenity and appropriate technology into a community garden.

What is our purpose?

The first thing to do is to get your group together and work out just why you want a community garden and what you hope to achieve. This is your purpose.

After defining your purpose, work out what will have to be done to achieve it. These points become your objectives, the actual things you will achieve over time.

Purpose statements are always general statements of intent. For instance:

• to establish and manage a community food garden for the supply of fresh, organically grown food to members
• to enhance opportunities for social interaction among members.

Your objectives might look something like:

• design a community garden to take best advantage of the characteristics of the site
• construct a community garden to provide individual allotments / shared garden (whatever you choose) to accommodate the number of members presently in the community garden group
• to manage the garden in an environmentally and socially responsible manner using organic gardening methods
• to manage the garden through processes which involve the full participation of members.

As you can see, your objectives are activities, things you will do over time. They are 'achievable' – things that your group can do with the resources at you have at hand. You should be able to demonstrate that they have been done.

Adding completion times

If you’re a really focused, determined bunch or people, you may want to put approximate times to accomplishing these objectives. Your objectives may then read something like:
design a community garden to take best advantage of the characteristics of the site by (insert a realistic date).

Be careful that you don’t underestimate the time it will take your group to reach an objective – progress can sometimes be surprisingly slow. Failing to meet inappropriate time targets can be discouraging to a group. Make completion dates realistic and be prepared to change them because of delays caused by wet weather, declining participation (fewer people may garden in winter, for instance) and the need to attend to other things of life.

Budget

Work out what you will need to start the garden and the approximate cost of these things:

• a couple spades
• a couple garden forks
• a garden rake
• a digging hoe
• a mattock
• several trowels
• a wheelbarrow
• one or two long garden hoses with adjustable spray fittings.

Buy the best quality tools you can afford - they will last longer.

You might also need to budget for:

• hose
• tap
• storage shed
• seeds
• perennial plants such as trees and shrubs
• organic matter (if needed)
• path and garden edging materials.

Water rates

Payment of water rates is best taken care of through an annual fee paid by gardeners.

Where gardens are to be built at community centres, the cpst of water may be covered by the centre or council.

Add these figures to obtain your start-up budget.

The items on your list, with the possible addition of training, make up our resource of inputs list - the things you need to get your garden going.

Make a timeline

Be generous in estimating how long it will take to get things done. Better to be pleasantly surprised at how quickly you did things than unpleasantly discouraged at how long things are taking.

Break the work of establishing the community garden into chunks:

• getting together a group of potential community gardeners and identifying your purpose, objectives, budget, timeline, resources needed
• finding land
• site analysis (investigating the characteristics of the land) and garden design
  garden construction.

Make a generous estimate of the time you think it would take to do all these things.

For community workers and council staff stimulating interest in community gardening, land and funding may already be available.

You would then factor in a time estimate for stimulating interest in the garden, site analysis/ design and construction.

After that has been done, the garden moves into a less intensive maintenance stage in which the main activity is gardening rather than construction of the garden.

Decisions

Here are a couple important decisions to be made during the planning stage. These are whether the garden will be a shared or allotment garden and whether organic gardening will be the approach used.

Shared gardening or allotments?

Now is the time to decide whether your garden is to be:

• a shared garden - in which people do whatever work is necessary at the time and then share the produce, or
• an allotment garden, with plots held individually by gardeners who have rights to what they grow as well as full responsibility for their plot.

The allotment gardens at Collingwood Children's Farm, Melbourne, are large enough to produce enought vegetables for a family. Some allotment gardens have dispensed with the high fences.

Many gardens, such as Randwick Organic Community Garden in Sydney and Collingwood Children's Farm in Melbourne, combine shared space and allotment plots.

Experience has shown that both approaches - shared gardens and allotments - work. Shared gardens require careful attention to communication between gardeners to coordinate their activity.

Will we garden organically?

You also need to decide whether you will use organic gardening methods or resort to pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and other synthetic biological controls and fertilisers.

Most gardens choose the organic road as this is costs less, reduces the chance of inappropriate chemical application on the soil and the gardeners health, promotes gardening skill, knowledge and self-reliance.

If you choose to garden organically, you will have to make this clear to gardeners who join the garden after it has started. One way to do this is to make a set of agreements which new gardeners abide by.

WHERE WILL WE GARDEN?

Having formed a group and planned your garden project, it's time to find a site if you do not have one already.

Community gardens are most commonly located on local government land, however you will find them on land owned by schools and universities, churches, state governments and hospitals.

Koorangang City Farm project coordinator, Rob Henderson, locates the farm site on an aerial photo. The project is on Kooragang Island, Newcastle, NSW.

Approach council

To approach council effectively, it really helps to prepare a well written, well presented submission.

This should contain:

• a description of your group
• your aims and objectives
• the skills and competencies of your members
• the characteristics and size of land needed
• whether you have public liability insurance
• your actual or proposed legal structure (eg incorporated association)
• case studies of other community gardens, particularly those in the same city
• potential sources of funding or other avenues for fund raising
• what lease arrangement you would prefer
• what you would require from council such as request for council assistance in funding or in kind to cover the start-up and recurrent costs of the garden such as public liability insurance, shed, tools, water supply and water rates
• how you would manage risk
• a description of the benefits of community gardens to communities and councils.

Meet with council staff

Organise a meeting and present your submission to council's strategic planning or other relevant section.

Take council staff through the main points, explaining them clearly and answering to the best of your ability their questions.

Try to anticipate their probable concerns such as:

• traffic and parking
• noise
• alienation of open space
• odour
• vandalism
• aesthetics
• safety.

These are frequently encountered concerns of both councils and local residents. Be prepared to deal with them through the information you have collected and presented in your submission, including the experience of other community gardeners who have dealt with them. While they are all valid concerns, most turn out not to be real problems at all.

If you know a councillor or supportive bureaucrat who can advise you on how best to make your approach, take advantage of the opportunity and ask them to accompany you when you meet with council.

Remember that you will probably be presenting to council with proposal they have never encountered before. Try to allay their concerns by adopting a courteous and competent manner and by addressing their concerns honestly.

Finding land may take time

Don't expect to find land immediately - it may take time.

Keep in mind that you might be knocked back a number of times, especially if council insists on a community consultation with the neighbours of your preferred site.

When finding gardening space takes too long, members of your group may grow tired of knockbacks, become dispirited and drop out. Maintain enthusiasm with an active program of searching for land, with social occasions where you get to know each other and workshops to develop your skills.

Security of tenure through leasing

Security of tenure for your group is important. A written lease is a better guarantee of tenure and provides a sense of security.

An initial one year lease will do two things:

• it will give the landholder the option of discontinuing the arrangement if the community garden group does not have the motivation to persist with the project or fails to maintain mutually agreed standards
• it gives the community garden group time to assess whether the project can be sustained.

The arrangement should provide for the option, providing both parties are happy with site management after one year, of future five year leases.

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DESIGNING THE GARDEN

Having got your gardening group together and having found land, it’s time to start the design process.

A large circular garden can provide a number of allotments or can be used as a shared garden. Coutour ditches (swales) were excavated to catch water and fruit trees planted on the slope behind the circular vegetable garden at the Interlife project in NSW's Blue Mountains.

First, go to council and obtain a copy of the site survey plan. If this is not available, measure up the site and draw it to scale.

The design process is best led by someone such as a landscape architect or permaculture designer who knows about site analysis and the characteristics of functional design. Where the garden is to be built on a government housing estate, the department’s landscape architect may assist with the design.

Design works best when everyone ‘owns’ it and this happens when the design process involves the full participation of the community gardeners.

Professional designers can work with the gardeners and present to them a range of design options.

Site conditions

First, work out site conditions. Look at the existing features and analyse the effect of characteristics such as:

• wind characteristics – the direction from which prevailing winds blow throughout the year and their characteristics (cold/ hot/ dry, blustery/ sea breeze etc); when you make your garden beds, you will want to protect them from potentially damaging winds by carefully placing them and through where you plant windbreaks; the department of metoerology may provide year-round weather information
• look at how the sun moves across your site; think about how much access to sunlight your site has year-round (vegetables need a minimum of about six hours sunlight a day); will there be enough sunblight when the sun is high in the sky in summer and when it is lower in the sky in winter?
• shade patterns will affect your site; shadows are longer in winter than in summer; work out whether any nearby trees or buildings will overshadow the site in winter; this information is used to locate your garden beds
• does your site slope? which way? This affects how runoff will move across your garden
  work out how rainfall runs through the site; does it flow through in a torrent? does it pool in areas of poor drainage? is it likely to wash in pollutants from busy roads?
• identify microclimates such as:
  • exposed places that will receive the full blast of the hot summer sun
  • areas which are permanently shaded
  • boggy, moist areas
  • pleasant and unpleasant places (how do they feel?)
• existing paths, fences and buildings are on site; are they in good condition? do you want to keep them?
• identify existing wildlife using the site, including neighbourhood children, and whether there are any rare plants worth keeping.

Draw up a base plan - site analysis

This information goes on to your base plan which has been drawn up from your site measurements or traced from the plan obtained from council.

The base plan is a scale drawing of your site showing boundaries and fixtures (existing paths, buildings, water supply, services, significant existing vegetation and so on).

Develop a wish list

Base plan drawn up, now brainstorm the things you would like on site such as:

• vegetable beds
• potting and propagating shed
• play areas for children
• seating areas
• orchard
• shelter
• passive and active recreational areas etc.

Raised garden beds provide good drainage. Discarded concrete reinforcing mesh has been reused as a bean trellis in this allotment at Randwick Organic Community Garden, Sydney.

Develop a concept plan

Now, where will you locate these things?

Using the information you compiled during the development of your site analysis, on a sheet of tracing paper overlaid over your base plan, mark in the areas where you would place the items in your wish list

Remember that it is important that things are placed so that it is easy to move around the site and so that parents can keep an eye on their children.

You may do several versions of your concept plan before you are happy that your plan has taken into account your site conditions and everyone's needs.

Draw up a final plan

Finally, draw up a final design. This guides you in constructing the garden.

A final plan shows more detail than a concept plan, such as:

• types of plantings - the location of annual vegetable beds, fruit orchard areas, windbreaks, herb gardens and so on
• types of structures - such as storage shed, sitting areas, nursery
• location of taps and water supply
• paths.

If you have obtained assistance from a landscape designer, then they will produce these plans for your approval. If the process of finding this information has been done by the gardeners themselves, under the guidance of the designer, then they will have a better understanding of their site.

LET’S START BUILDING!

You might think that it has taken a lot of effort to get this far are you are right. But believe me – time spent in planning is time well spent. You don’t then have to waste your time correcting the mistakes of bad or non-existent planning!

Now your group has identified its needs, obtained land and designed the community garden. At last, it’s time to start building.

A string knotted at the radius of the garden bed and the width of the path is used to mark out a circular garden and pathway at UNSW Community Permaculture Garden. To make the path, cardboard has been placed on the grass and bricks laid to mark the edges. Bark chips were later used to fill the path. January 1995.

Aesthetics are important

Most community gardeners quickly become expert scroungers. Building materials, old seats and other things are easily recycled in community gardens.

Remember when you’re collecting recyclables that you will get on best with council and neighbours if you store materials tidily and maintain a high level of visual aesthetics. The place should not look like a junkyard.

You know that aesthetics do not affect the productivity of your garden, but the perceptions of neighbours are real considerations in the management of community gardens. Anyway, materials stored tidily are more accessible.

List materials needed

You identified the materials, equipment and resources you will need during the planning stage.

Look for local businesses that might donate some of them. Perhaps council has old park benches at its depot they will let you use. For those you have to buy, consider grants and fundraising events.

Construction tasks

In the construction phase, we carry out a number of tasks:

• garden bed construction
• soil fertility improvement
• pathway construction
• nursery building for plant propagation
• compost making (this can start as soon as you secure access to land)
• propagation of plants for our first planting (this too can start as soon as you secure access to land; the young plants can be looked after in the gardener’s home until they are ready to plant)
• building a storage shed and a shelter for the gardeners to sit under, out of the rain or hot sun.

Shelter

You will quickly find that community gardens are more than spaces where people grow food. They become social gathering places.

This makes the construction of some kind of shelter a task of equal importance to that of building garden beds and planting them out. You will need somewhere to escape the weather, to relax, to brew coffee or tea (maybe herbal teas from the garden).

A weed barrier of newspaper is covered with a layer of mulch. Perennial plants, such as bananas, were planted first and the newspaper placed around them. Macquarie University Community Garden, Sydney.

Paths

Pathways are important. They enable you to move around your garden easily, to get a wheelbarrow where you need to take it and to harvest plants without trampling the garden.

If you succeed in getting a large enough grant, consider paved pathways. These require less maintenance. Those at Melbourne's Fitzroy Community Garden and Sydney's Waterloo Estate gardens are good examples.

Too often, you visit community gardens and see the gardeners getting frustrated with pulling out kikuyu and other invasive grasses from their poorly made paths and their garden beds because of the poorly made garden edges.

Well constructed gardens are low maintenance, low-frustration gardens.

As a safety precaution with children, a barrier of concrete reinforcing mesh has been fastened over a pond in the Waterloo Community Garden at Waterloo Uniting Church, inner-Sydney. An old bathtub has been used for the pond. Food plants such as water chestnut, duck potato and watercress can be grown in garden ponds.

Paths for educational gardens

If your garden is to fulfil an educational role or is part of an educational institution and you expect frequent visits by large numbers of people:

• plan your main access paths wider than usual to accommodate larger numbers
• design gathering places where people can gather around a guide to listen to them
• design sitting circles - circles of bench seats - where visitors can sit to listen to their guide or to participate in workshop activities
• plan a covered workshop/ sitting area protected from sun and rain by a roof and from cold winds by a wall or barrier of some type; ensure that there is a bench or table where people can sit and eat.

THE MANAGEMENT PHASE

With your garden designed, constructed and planted out, your project now moves into a maintenance phase in which gardening, rather than construction, is the main activity. There will still be garden beds to build for people who join the garden, of course, compost to make and plants to propagate.

Draw up management plan

With the garden established, it is time to develop a modest management plan.

With the entire garden area under cultivation, planting, harvesting, seed saving and maintenance are the major activities at Glovers Community Garden, Sydney.

The management plan need not be a formal, detailed document. It’s purpose should be to remind you of ongoing tasks. Keep it simple and brief.

The management plan identifies all those ongoing tasks and how they will be accomplished, such as:

• organisational meetings to plan your activities
• weed control
• compost making and turning
• tool and equipment maintenance
• risk management
• social activities
• inducting new members to the garden
• liaising with landholders
• starting plants from seeds in your nursery.

Figure out a general schedule for these activities and plot this on a one-year timeline. Then decide how and by whom the tasks will be tackled.

GARDENING, COOKING AND EATING

The hard work is over and you settle into an easygoing gardening routine. There's more time for socialising and sitting watching the garden rather than building it.

Cooking is a natural accompaniment to growing community gardening. If you have a fireplace or gas cooker in your garden you can prepare delicious meals with other gardeners. Javanese cook Betty Bailey demonstrates cooking from the garden at Young Earth Community Garden, Chester Hill, Sydney.

Now, in the company of new friends you have made during your community gardening adventure, it’s time to enjoy your first crop of fresh, organically grown vegetables and herbs... so who's going to light up the barbecue and brew tea made from herbs we have grown?

YOUR COMMUNITY GARDEN PROJECT

1. Find people interested in community gardening and form a group.
2. Work out your purpose in starting a community garden and develop a set of objectives to accomplish that purpose over time.
3. If necessary, formally incorporate your group (this might be necessary to apply for some funding grants).
4. Search for suitable land on which to build your community garden.
5. After you find land, carry our a site analysis and develop a plan for your garden; make a list of materials, tools and equipment you will need; develop a budget
6. Find some funding - your group may be self-funding or you might apply for a small grant; get your tools, equipment and materials together.
7. Construct your garden and make your first planting.
8. Using the simple management plan developed during your planning process to keep the garden a productive and pleasant environment, enjoy your gardening and, most important of all, enjoy eating the food you grow.