Use Outdoor Space for Community / Food Gardening Make Text Larger Make Text Smaller Print This Page

If your organization is a strata council or operates any type of building or facility, you may have some outdoor space available. This might be as small as a few planters or it could be a lawn or outdoor deck. Using these spaces to create community gardens can go a long way to building relationships amongst your members – and adding a beautiful diversity to your venue. Planting food plants helps create tangible links between people and environment and can help bring a dull planted area to life.

How to take action

  • If you have a local community garden group, contact them for ideas and support on converting your land to community plots. You will need to decide how the plots can be assigned and what support gardeners might need. Refer to the Green Your Community "Create Community Gardens" tip for ideas.
  • If members of your own group are not interested in gardening, consider offering your spaces to people living nearby who don't have access to land or who wish to garden more extensively. You get the benefit of having your land come to life with diverse plants, and you'll build community relationships too.
  • If community gardens are unfeasible for some reason, consider planting your outdoor space with food plants. Berries, fruit trees, bush beans, melons or squash, and herbs are just a few ideas for plants that need relatively little tending and yield food that people can enjoy. Post a sign inviting people to pick the produce once it's ripe.
  • Promote your gardens to your membership and neighbours. Some people have become accustomed to uniform, controlled green spaces (such as lawns and planters filled with just one species of plant) and may not recognize the value of a more diverse and "messy" approach to your garden. Let them know you're supporting local food, animal habitat, and community connections. Invite them to take part.
  • Celebrate your gardens. Hold an annual barbecue, or harvest party (when your food plants are ready to be picked) and use your green space to bring people together.

Why it makes a difference

  • Growing local food – even if in small amounts – helps reduce how much food is transported into your region, and helps reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.
  • Gardening is a healthy outdoor pastime that helps people naturally get to know one another. It fosters communication and cooperation.
  • More people spending more time outdoors around your facility helps improve security.
  • Young people who grow up with a chance to garden, or to harvest food from a garden, will have a better appreciation for the environment than those who have never seen food grown from the ground. Gardens foster a relationship with the environment that is easily lost in dense urban areas. Your community garden can make a contribution to a rejuvenated sense of environmental stewardship.

For more information

Last Modified: Sep 3, 2010

 

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