Growing a community, one garden at a time

Inter­est in com­mu­nity gar­dens has reached an all-time high, but a gar­den could fiz­zle and fade unless the right train­ing and sup­port is pro­vided for startup groups.

Each group needs sev­eral ingre­di­ents to be suc­cess­ful. Com­mu­nity gar­dens are defined by the group of gar­den­ers that man­age them. Delaware County cur­rently has sev­eral gar­dens, each with its own unique characteristics.

Most com­mu­nity gar­dens are com­prised of manageably-sized gar­den plots, jointly cre­ated by mem­bers in the com­mu­nity and cared for by indi­vid­u­als. They encour­age oppor­tu­ni­ties for social gath­er­ings, beau­ti­fi­ca­tion, edu­ca­tion and recreation.

The Delaware County Mas­ter Gar­den­ers have formed a com­mit­tee called Grow and Share, which is designed to assist com­mu­nity gar­dens through­out Delaware County. The group’s mis­sion is to be a resource cen­ter for infor­ma­tion, seeds, fact sheets and some­times a help­ing hand. Most of all, we are here to sup­port each gar­den with ques­tions, issues and con­cerns. We will be host­ing a series of classes and pro­grams, begin­ning in April, to help gar­den­ers with their endeav­ors. The classes will be held monthly with a dif­fer­ent topic each month, all related to com­mu­nity gardening.

A pro­gram is being held Sat­ur­day, Feb. 4, at the Colum­bus State Com­mu­nity College’s Delaware cam­pus. The keynote speaker will be Bill Daw­son, the coor­di­na­tor of Grow­ing to Green at Franklin Park Con­ser­va­tory. He will share his many expe­ri­ences regard­ing the grow­ing, build­ing and the sus­tain­abil­ity of a com­mu­nity gar­den. Atten­dees will dis­cover ways to improve gar­den pro­duc­tion through suc­ces­sion plant­ing and com­pan­ion plant­ing. A panel of experts will be on hand to dis­cuss how to cre­ate, man­age and main­tain gar­dens in your com­mu­nity, in addi­tion to answer­ing ques­tions of those who have estab­lished gardens.

The day begins at 10 a.m. and runs until 4 p.m. The pro­gram costs $15, and lunch is included, along with cof­fee and water. We will also have avail­able an optional book titled Dig In for pur­chase at $12. This man­ual was cre­ated by the Cuya­hoga County Mas­ter Gar­den­ers to help in cre­at­ing the more than 200 com­mu­nity gar­dens in the area. It’s a won­der­ful resource guide to get you started and keep things run­ning smoothly. If you can’t attend the day of the pro­gram but are inter­ested in a Dig In guide, you can get one at the OSU Exten­sion Office in Delaware.

Com­mu­nity gar­dens are as impor­tant to a neigh­bor­hood as pub­lic parks, espe­cially in low-income areas with poor access to healthy foods. A com­mu­nity gar­den can pro­vide good healthy food, exer­cise in main­tain­ing the gar­den and a food source within easy access. Com­mu­nity gar­dens can make a dif­fer­ence in the lives of those involved. You meet your neigh­bors, which is some­thing lost in this day and age. They bring together peo­ple of dif­fer­ent back­grounds with the com­mon inter­est of gar­den­ing and the pro­duc­tion of food in an environmentally-responsible way. Peo­ple from var­i­ous parts of the world come together and share cul­tural and culi­nary tech­niques with other members.

Call the OSU Exten­sion office at 740–833-2030 to reg­is­ter for the Feb. 4 pro­gram, by Fri­day, Jan. 20. We look for­ward to the day, and learn­ing how to grow a community.

Susan Liechty is an OSU Exten­sion Mas­ter Gardener.

Posted by Master Gardener on Jan 7 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.