Community gardens are growing

Call them allot­ment gar­dens, vic­tory gar­dens or com­mu­nity gar­dens, it’s all the same.

These forms of pub­lic gar­dens have been in exis­tence since the 1700s through­out the world. The old­est com­mu­nity gar­den in the United States dates back 250 years to the Winston-Salem, N.C., area. Dur­ing World War II con­sumers were encour­aged to plant gar­dens to grow their own pro­duce, so canned goods could be saved for the sol­diers — 20,000 Amer­i­cans answered the call to plant a gar­den. They were planted on empty lots, in back­yards and even on rooftops. Vic­tory Gar­dens grew by leaps and bounds. The amount of pro­duce from the gar­dens dur­ing that period was equal to the amount of com­mer­cially grown pro­duce for the same period. In 1943, fam­i­lies bought 315,000 pres­sure cook­ers as com­pared to 66,000 in 1942.

In the last four years with the increased aware­ness of local food, a sim­i­lar growth has occurred in farm­ers’ mar­kets and com­mu­nity gar­dens, tak­ing its place in the his­tory books once again.

Amer­i­can Com­mu­nity Gar­den Asso­ci­a­tion, located at the Franklin Park Con­ser­va­tory, states on their web­site that a com­mu­nity gar­den means many things to many peo­ple. For some, a com­mu­nity gar­den is a place to grow food, flow­ers and herbs in the com­pany of friends and neigh­bors. For oth­ers, it’s a place to recon­nect with nature or get phys­i­cal exer­cise. Some use com­mu­nity gar­dens because they lack ade­quate space at their house or apart­ment to have a gar­den. Oth­ers take part in com­mu­nity gar­den­ing to build or revi­tal­ize a sense of com­mu­nity among neighbors.

The types of Com­mu­nity Gar­dens are var­ied. It can be as sim­ple as a basic neigh­bor­hood gar­den with divided plots that are cared for by neigh­bors and fam­i­lies. Other types are:

• Youth/school gar­dens involve stu­dents in the gar­den as a learn­ing process. Some­times they are located on school grounds and involve hands-on train­ing and participation.

• Food pantry gar­dens are often set up by non-profit orga­ni­za­tions or vol­un­teers to help ben­e­fit a food pantry.

• Demon­stra­tion gar­dens can be man­aged by a gar­den club or group such as the mas­ter gar­den­ers to use as a teach­ing gar­den. Some­times the gar­dens will fea­ture unusual veg­eta­bles and instruc­tional tech­niques for gardeners.

• Mis­sion gar­dens are set up by churches to ben­e­fit a food bank or an orga­ni­za­tion. One such church in Delaware County is Lib­erty Pres­by­ter­ian Church. Their gar­den was estab­lished three years ago by the church’s Mis­sion Com­mit­tee and is still going strong. For the year of 2011, they donated more than 335 pounds of pro­duce to Peo­ple in Need in Delaware. Accord­ing to vol­un­teer and mas­ter gar­dener Con­nie Zuga, they pick pro­duce and make deliv­er­ies three times per week through­out the grow­ing sea­son. This year they had a bumper crop of cucum­bers, donat­ing 83 pounds to P.I.N.

Build­ing a sense of com­mu­nity just fol­lows with the build­ing of a com­mu­nity gar­den. Proven ben­e­fits are: improved nutri­tion, improved neigh­bor­hood involve­ment, reduc­tion in hunger, improve­ment in the envi­ron­ment and improved men­tal and phys­i­cal health. Tak­ing care of plants, watch­ing the birds and but­ter­flies, and enjoy­ing the out­doors are some of the sim­ple ben­e­fits of a com­mu­nity garden.

Delaware County has a few active com­mu­nity gar­dens with plans under way for more. Genoa Town­ship located on Wor­thing­ton Galena Road is the largest. Parks man­ager, Ron Keil said this year was chal­leng­ing with the weather con­di­tions, but the major­ity of the plots were sold. He stated the best part of com­mu­nity gar­den­ing is the cama­raderie among the gar­den­ers, along with shar­ing ideas on tech­niques and dif­fer­ent vari­eties of veg­eta­bles. Inter­ested par­ties can con­tact Keil directly at 614–568-2029 for more infor­ma­tion on par­tic­i­pat­ing in 2012.

Blue Lime­stone Park had a total of nine spaces that were sold quickly. Jeni Stred­nak who over­saw the gar­dens this year said that com­mu­nity gar­dens take some effort to get up and run­ning, and to main­tain them for the sea­son. All in all, the gar­dens were suc­cess­ful this year and she looks for­ward to an even more pro­duc­tive year in 2012.

Ash­ley Library com­mu­nity gar­den had three plots sold this past sea­son, and plans are to have the gar­den avail­able next year. Eliz­a­beth Barker over­sees and man­ages the gar­den in Ash­ley. Numer­ous pro­grams have been pre­sented by the mas­ter gar­den­ers at the Ash­ley Library in 2010 and 2011 focus­ing on all aspects of com­mu­nity gardening.

The Delaware County Mas­ter Gar­den­ers have recently estab­lished a com­mit­tee whose focus is to coor­di­nate the efforts of com­mu­nity gar­dens in Delaware County. Our goals are to be a resource cen­ter for hand­outs, instruc­tions and edu­ca­tional pro­grams to assist with gar­den set up and the gar­den­ers involved. Next year we will be offer­ing monthly pro­grams with top­ics such as suc­ces­sion gar­den­ing, com­pan­ion plant­ing, insects and con­trol, herbs, gen­eral veg­etable main­te­nance and can­ning, just to name a few. If you would like to be included on our email list, please notify the Exten­sion Office at 740–833-2030 to be added for future announce­ments of programs.

Start­ing a com­mu­nity gar­den can be a daunt­ing project. Where will it go, who will over­see the gar­dens, how will it be divided, how much should be charged and on and on. This fall and win­ter is a per­fect time to begin think­ing of start­ing a new com­mu­nity gar­den in your area. Mark your cal­en­dars for Feb. 4, 2012 for a pro­gram on Com­mu­nity Gar­dens: how to get started and man­age a gar­den. A panel group will be on hand to dis­cuss new ideas and issues/concerns with cur­rent com­mu­nity gar­dens. Bill Daw­son, Grow­ing to Green Coor­di­na­tor, will be the fea­tured speaker. Watch for details com­ing soon.

Susan Liechty is an OSU Exten­sion Delaware County Mas­ter Gardener.

Posted by Master Gardener on Oct 28 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.