{"id":9355,"date":"2014-04-15T16:21:13","date_gmt":"2014-04-15T15:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greensideup.ie\/?p=9355"},"modified":"2015-07-30T08:30:54","modified_gmt":"2015-07-30T07:30:54","slug":"focus-callan-community-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greensideup.ie\/focus-callan-community-garden\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Create A Successful Community \/ Workplace Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One of the benefits of working in a group environment such as a community garden is the amount of experience and knowledge we gain working alongside one other, as well as learning how to get the most from each other’s strengths by working in a team. This is relevant to both community and work place gardens.<\/p>\n
I’ve written some guidelines that you can refer to if you’re wondering what a community garden is<\/a> or how to set one up<\/a>, but if you’re already involved with a community garden and wondering how to get the best from it, Callan’s story might be of help to you.<\/p>\n Callan community garden is situated at the back of the old Friary which is now the Droichead Family Resource Centre<\/a>, a network of centres that were created with community and social inclusion as key elements of their ethos.<\/p>\n For the past 18 months I’ve been funded by Kilkenny Leader Partnership<\/a> to work with the group of gardeners, helping them to grow their own fruit and vegetables as well as create an awareness of local food produce and it’s importance in the local economy. This project has also enabled us to create an opportunity for progressive development and sustainability by creating a mini enterprise.<\/p>\n Meeting for a couple of hours each week, we began in the autumn of 2012 with a short, basic theory led course where gardeners were introduced to vegetable families, crop rotation, soil requirements, the myriad of seed choices as well as the importance of incorporating wildlife into our gardens.<\/p>\n This gave the group a taster of the practical work that would follow in the more garden friendly months and in the spring of 2013, we started work outside on the very small space allocated to us.<\/p>\n At that time the garden and polytunnel were divided between several groups, including local transition year students and a FETAC<\/a> accredited BTEI (Back to Education) course. As the summer holidays approached, the school and horticulture groups finished and the community gardeners began to mind the entire garden. This change inspired a blog post suggesting that schools might be the ideal and natural partners for hosting community gardens<\/a>, ensuring that produce is cared for and minded throughout the year.<\/p>\n