Comments on: Are Community Gardens Obsolete?

By: Ed Bruske

Ed Bruske — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 14:41:00 +0000

You’re right, Sylvie, there would be an administrative burden. On the other hand, the city could provide professionals to manage gardens and handle many of those tasks. As it is, the properties are overseen by the recreation department, which hardly does anything more than pass the properties off with very little monitoring. As you say, so much land continues to be gobbled up by development we should be taking what happens to the land that is left much more seriously.

By: Sylvie

Sylvie — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 14:17:00 +0000

Hi Ed, I am late commenting - catching up on my reading list. It's interesting that this post has attracted the highest number of comments, at least among your recent posts. It must touch a nerve...

Doing something different can be so difficult!

Ideas that may help might be: setting this up as a CSA - and not a community garden. Although I do like the idea of both if the plot is large enough: one side a CSA-like co-op and one side individual assigned beds. The organization that set that up (volunteer anybody?) would need to have a vision and express it clearly: for example: organic (spell out), every member must work at least xxx h a week or a month, task list to be developed by the Task Committee, tracking of time by somebody else. The planting committee decides what to buy (in bulk); then there must be a committee to divide the harvest weekly etc... so it can be a bit of administrative stuff. Even if some is done on the honor system. But in the latter case, I think you will find that as in many organizations, the bulk of the work is done by a small core group - and they can burn out!

But then the rules can be set forward very clearly and people have to agree with them to join. If they don't do it they get kicked out: penalties are also clearly stated upfront. If they don't like it they can go start their own garden. so, yes indeed it would be a bit of admin.

But from a yield prospective, it would be a lot more efficient... and so would the sharing of knowledge - which can be formalized through workshops or mentoring.

I hope to read more about this.
When I was working in DC (in commercial real estate), one of our client had vacant land next to apartment buildings. I suggested that they'd turned them into "victory" gardens for the aapartment dwellers. I did not quite get chewed up for it, but... unbeknownst to me they were in negotiations with developers and the land has "grown" more shopping malls...

sigh...
let's go plant more seeds...

By: Ed Bruske

Ed Bruske — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:13:00 +0000

Bill, thanks for that information and for the valuable link. San Francisco always seems to be a couple steps ahead. I do believe that as energy costs increase and food miles become more critical urban land will become more precious and people will want to garden more intensively. Community gardens will be seen less as a recreational opportunity and more as an essential good growing strategy. Under that scenario, inefficiencies would be eliminated in the interest of producing more food for the community.

By: Bill Goedecke

Bill Goedecke — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 01:41:00 +0000

Sorry – post is a little late. Thanks for this article – ran across it on a google search for community gardens and acreage. I have been a coordinator for a community garden in SF, plus I built a website for the CGs in SF (www.sfgro.org). I visited most of the gardens and I noticed a wide variety of use – some were not used at all and some were tightly managed (tightly managed in the minority). The tightly managed ones had long waiting lists. The gardens had to get to a certain size before they became more efficient. The smaller ones tended to be haphazard. If you are going to have individual plots and have the garden be productive, you need a lot of well-understood and agreed upon rules and a relatively decentralized management. One garden did start out as your suggested, but it worked out that some people did all the work, and some did little – so you would have that kind of problem. For the four and one half acre Alemany Farm in SF, there is recognized management and funding. So it is not so clear, from my experience, how to do this best.

By: Ed Bruske

Ed Bruske — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:01:00 +0000

Nat, thanks for sharing your ingenious solution for urban food gardening. It’s just that kind of creative accomodation between land owners and gardeners that will be so important as our traditional food system comes under increasing stress. My point is that government agencies involved in creating community gardens should be giving more thought to collective farm arrangements that can provide more food for the community, rather than just turning the land over to the whims of individuals.

By: Nat West

Nat West — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:58:00 +0000

Ed – after waiting for more than a year for a plot in Portland, Oregon, I took matters into my own hands. I found an empty city lot, tracked down the owner via county records, and asked them if I could make it a community garden. Half of it is “mine” and half is a CSA style setup.

So not only is the traditional model of community plots outdated, so is the traditional model of using public land. In exchange for use of the lot, I provide one CSA share to the landowner, sharecropper-style.

By: Ed Bruske

Ed Bruske — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:23:00 +0000

Judy, you’re right. We should be using front and back yards to grow local food. That should definitely be one of many aspects of a comprehensive local food growing strategy for the city.

Anon, I agree, puttering and flowers are great. But as I mention elsewhere, there are plenty of opportunities to do that besides in a community garden.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 02:31:00 +0000

“Rise or fall on your own” may be an American idea, but efficiency/no motion wasted is a very Western/Calvinist idea as well. There is value in puttering, learning on your own, maybe even growing some flowers in your plot instead of food. Reference the poem my Mom used to quote to me when I was growing up about “If you have 2 loaves, sell one and buy hyacinths for the soul.”

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 03:05:00 +0000

Another great option is people sharing their yards, no matter how small. Amongst them they could landscape with veggies, fruits, herbs, plants to attract pollinators, etc. Great way to learn together and eat better. Prettier, too!
Judy Tiger

By: Ed Bruske

Ed Bruske — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 02:35:00 +0000

Leslie, look further down on the right hand side of this page for links under food gardening resources. You should find help there.

Rox Sen, I think the SPIN workshop you are referring to on Feb. 22 is being held at the Turkey Thicket Rec center, no?

Belmont, find the owner and ask if you can garden there.

Luke, I agree--we need community composting.