Community Gardening

Dee will be helping the following community gardens from early spring 2012. If you're interested in joining the group please get in touch with the contact below.

Mondays: Millennium Court Community Centre, Kilkenny -
Penny on 056 7760187 (between 2 - 6)

Wednesdays: Goresbridge Rural Development Office -
Breda on 059 977 5646 (between 10 - 1)

Fridays: Leighlinbridge Parish Centre -
Liz Dunne - 059 9722607 (between 9 - 1)

 

Community Gardening

If you're interested in setting up a Community Food Garden in your own town or village Dee may be able to help you.

There are so many benefits to community gardening from learning about growing food to making friends. They are all about sharing - both the work and the harvest and they can have very positive social, economic and environmental impacts in communities. They create an awareness of the local area and can transform overgrown, unloved spaces into welcoming, vibrant places. Community gardens are usually open to all ages, from seasoned gardeners to complete beginners. Learning by doing is the best way to develop confidence in new skills and participants are encouraged to practice what they've learnt in their own allotments, gardens or balconies.

Before ...

 

    ... and After

 

So what do participants gain from being involved in a community garden?

Here are my top ten reasons:

1. They learn new skills and how growing, harvesting and eating your own food is good for both mental and physical health.

2. They learn about the seasonality of food and pick up recipe ideas and new cooking techniques.

3. They try out different foods and flavours that were once popular but may not be available in supermarkets.

4. They're encouraged to grow their own food at home in tandem with the community food project.

5. They learn how successes and failures of growing food are 'normal'.

6. They have a better appreciation of how difficult it can be to grow food without using chemicals and why organic food is generally more expensive at markets and in shops.

7. They're more likely to shop locally, searching out better quality foods and flavours.

8. Participants have a better appreciation of their community.

9. Community gardens are available to people on a tight budget.

10. Participants will have learnt a basic life skill - they will know that whatever happens, they will be able to provide food for themselves and their families.

This list could go on. There's room for a community garden everywhere. All you need is a small scrap of land to create one and an enthusiastic couple of people to get one up and running.

So how do you go about starting up a community garden?

You’ve looked around and can’t find a community garden in your area but are keen to get involved… what next? How do you go about setting one up?

As with any new project, enthusiasm and commitment is the key. If you have those, and really want to achieve something, then nothing is impossible.... from there on in everything has a way of falling into place.

So you have bucket loads of enthusiasm, then what?

It's important to think about what you want from the garden...who will be using it? Will it be the active retirement group, young people, the community as a whole or individual groups? Often groups find the funding for a polytunnel and some equipment, try to recruit some individuals to come along and garden, and stall because they have no real plan for it.

Play around with some ideas until you have a vision or a goal. It may change along the way but at least you'll have something to talk to others about and ideally fire up their enthusiasm too.

Then you need to recruit some fellow gardeners to help you make your vision a reality.

In Ireland Pride of Place and Tidy Towns competitions are becoming more popular and the individuals working to help their communities look their best often have contacts, resources, and/or knowledge about funding/land that should not be overlooked.

Local council offices usually know who the committee members are and would be a good point of contact if you're unsure.

A large polytunnel in a community would be a major asset as groups would be able to start seedlings off for their planting schemes to ensure their villages, towns and cities are full of flowers, at a much lower cost than having to buy them all in.

Parish churches may have enthusiastic helpers and/or land so may be worth considering too and from my experience, Family Resource Centres are always willing to help community groups. You could also advertise in a local newspaper (they may run a short story which will cost nothing) or place posters up in shop windows.

Once you have fellow enthusiastic volunteers the land usually follows. It may be an old scrap of land that's often used for fly tipping or an unsightly area that's been overlooked.... in just a few months you can pretty much guarantee that it will be transformed.

And that's fairly much it. It helps to get an 'expert' in to help get you started. Inviting a qualified horticulturalist to come along and help you set up or give a series of gardening classes is invaluable and these can often be found on VEC tutor lists.

The important thing is DON'T GIVE UP.... it may take a while to get going, but once you have a community garden, you won't regret it.

If you do start a garden, or know of one in your area there's a Facebook Page that you can 'like' for up-to-date information and links to other community gardens in Ireland and GIY Ireland are plotting community gardens on their map too. The Organic Centre in Leitrim has published a very handy guide to Community Gardening which is well worth downloading... and of course you can contact me.

Best of luck!

Irish Community Gardening

If you're involved with, or just interested in Community Gardening, then please follow the Irish Community Gardening Facebook page:

Goresbridge

Click here to find out how Goresbridge developed their Community Garden in 2010.

Thanks to James Bourke of www.biggerpictureweb.com and also one of our community gardeners, a full gallery of photos of the garden from its inception in March 2010 are available on Flickr at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/goresbridge_gardening/sets/72157624290711214/

GIY Ireland Forum

gyyireland.com/group/166

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