Community Gardens

Community Gardens …. where/how do I start one?

May 2, 2011

Start Up Essentials for a Community Garden
How to Start a Community Garden

Community gardens are growing in popularity for good reason. From learning new life skills, and understanding that failures are as much a part of gardening and growing food as successes, to the feelgood factor of being outdoors in nature, and meeting likeminded people; there are many benefits. If you’re wondering how to start a community garden, this article may help.

I’ve been blessed to work with, and gain experience in rural and urban community gardens since 2010 as a mentor, consultant, co-designer, volunteer and horticultural tutor, and have visited gardens from Derry and Belfast, to Kerry, Cork, Waterford and many in between. If there isn’t already a community garden close by you, one of the first things you will need to find is people.

Finding Likeminded People

In Ireland,Tidy Towns groups and 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.

The Community section in Local authority offices usually know who the committee members are, and would be a good point of contact if you’re unsure.

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. Residents Groups in housing estates might be interested in creating a community garden and the local Volunteer Centre might have a list of people interested in gardening too.

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, or reach out to your friends on social media.

Finding Land

You have bucket loads of enthusiasm, some fellow volunteers, then what?

Community Gardens come in all shapes and sizes, from alleyways to two acre plots. You may have spotted an old scrap of land that’s often used for fly tipping, or an unsightly area that’s been overlooked…. once you have agreement from the land owner, in just a few months you can pretty much guarantee that it will be transformed.

As with people, local parish churches, family resource centres or the local authority, might be able to point you in the direction of some land.

Governance

If you plan to look for funding for your new group and garden, you will need to put some Governance in place. Community Gardens Ireland have templates on their website for a Constitution and Lease, should you need them. It’s also worth letting your local Public Participation Network know about you so you can keep in touch with the latest news, funding and training courses. Your local County Development Office may also be able to help you to get up and running.

Your Vision

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, individual groups or a mixture? 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.

Equipment

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.

You can find more ideas for some start up essentials in a community garden here.

And that’s pretty much it. It helps to get an ‘expert’ in to help get you started. Inviting a qualified horticulturist to come along and help you set up or give a series of gardening classes is invaluable and these can often be found on ETB tutor lists. They are generally free of charge and no previous skills or experience are necessary.

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.  Still not sure? Ten benefits of community gardening can be found here.

If you do start a garden, or know of one in your area there’s a great Facebook Pagethat you can follow for up-to-date information and links to other community gardens in Ireland. 

During 2021/22 I was involved in the European URBACT Ru:Rban programme in Carlow run through the Carlow Local Enterprise Board, mentoring ten local community gardens. A Guide for Design and Implementation of Community Gardens for County Carlow which you can access here was also created by Cathal O’Meara Landscape Architects as part of the process.

Good luck and feel free to leave a comment if you’re in or have set up a community garden in your area. I’d love to hear and learn from your own experiences.

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