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Has anyone considered putting in community gardens? It seems we have these sprawling housing areas without many places to interact with the neighbors and a community garden would seem like a good place to create a sense of community as well as grow food for the community at the same time.
Does anyone know the methods of getting a community garden? How to set it up? How to keep it functioning? How to distribute the vegetables?
"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson
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We have 'em here - in a city of over 2 million.
Puna: Our roosters crow first
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I don't think we have that many people on the whole island, let alone in our little community. Oh well, maybe we will just start gardening and see where we end up.
"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson
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We lived in an area for 20 years in between a city of ~50k and a village of 13k (sorta like where we are today!) The city had a few community gardens, most in flood plain areas, that they let out at ~$25 per season (that is fuzzy, but I remember it wasn't free & wasn't a lot...) for a quarter acre area... you did have to sign a code of conduct contract, & could have your 'lease' (it wasn't a lease... use permit???) revoked if you didn't keep it up (no weeds, of ANY kind, keeping it clean & tidy...) they did have a community garden committee that would monitor any complaints & such.
The village had areas along a bike path that the community garden club planted... you had to be a member of the garden club, & abide by rules & regulations set up by the club. The club planted & tended the gardens that had ornamentals interspersed with produce... really nice for formally bleachy areas of the bike path... & the club members divided the produce....
The third option we had was that our company had a lot of acreage that they let employees plant (this is the one we used, as our former house was a one acre Oak forest with heavy thick clay on a north face of a terminal ridge...ie, no way anything with any sense would want to set down roots... except humans!) The company had a very hands off approach, you signed up for as many plots as you wanted (I seem to remember they were 50'x50') and the company would would have it tilled (All of this land was former prairie that had been corn fields for decades, most of it was near an old rail line that had been turned into trails...)
So three different ways to handle... very hands on to fairly informal...
Community Gardens are typically for folks who can't grow "ANYTHING" at their own residences. (Big Cities/Condominium Owners/Renters of places that aren't allowed to grow things...etc.)
The Ala Wai Community garden on Oahu, used to charge $12.00 per year to lease a space about 15 Feet x 15 Feet however, the waiting list to get one of these small plots would extend over 2 years.
I used to live in the McCully area of Oahu and we had 3 Community gardens that I know of within about 10 miles of each other.
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The situation here is where we all have fairly large yards to plant in if we wanted, but most of them aren't level. There is a level unused parcel near the center of the area and we are thinking it would make a nice garden area. Give everyone a chance at gardening on a level area as well as help in the garden. Many of our residents are elderly and even if they didn't tend the garden themselves they could still use the produce from it. Gardens tend to produce more than one family can eat so if we made a community garden we'd have a flat spot to garden, we could share the use of tools and we would have folks to give the extra to. It's just that the unused parcel is owned by the County and I don't know if we would have to go through any particular process to get permission to garden there.
It would also be nice to have the water turned on and get the County weed whacker guys to go through and do the initial whacking down of guinea grass. Having a source of fresh vegetables for our community will help the folks out a lot with their grocery bills.
"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson
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Isn't that area around the Catholic Church (where they have the stations of the cross) a community garden? Probably open to parishioners only though.
John Dirgo, R, ABR, e-PRO
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One restriction should be banannas, get a few stands of them and no more sunlight anywhere!
Gordon J Tilley
