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Contents 1 In the beginning: Starting a new community garden 1.1 Who can start a community garden? 1.2 Deciding to start a community garden 1.3 Form a working group 1.4 Public meetings 1.5 Community Garden tours 1.6 Develop your vision and plan 1.7 Finding a place to grow your garden 1.8 Security of tenure 1.9 While you’re waiting to find the site... 1.10 Ideas for visioning sessions 1.11 A start up budget for your garden

[edit] In the beginning: Starting a new community garden

Starting a community garden from scratch is a major undertaking. Expect that it will take time, energy, endurance and commitment. Work slowly, emphasising community involvement from the outset. It can be helpful to break up the project into small thoughtful steps you know you can follow through – and celebrate all of your accomplishments. Resist rushing in without planning and research. This Kit is a good starting point, but keep in mind that it is designed for long-established community gardens as well as for people starting out, so don’t get overwhelmed! It may take years before you’re ready to embark on your own training program, for example.

The ‘community’ aspect of community gardens is especially important at the initial stages. It’s relatively easy to dig garden beds and build compost heaps, but forming a group of enthusiastic and committed participants who can sustain the project can take considerable effort and time – don’t rush to get your hands in the soil before you’ve done the community-building groundwork. There are many different kinds of community gardens, each with unique circumstances, visions, and people. What follows is not a prescription for establishing a community garden, but some ideas to help you develop your own process.

[edit] Who can start a community garden?

Community gardens have been initiated and run by individuals, small groups, community organisations, community and health agencies, and Local Councils. Community participation is an important aspect of all community gardens. While a community health worker considering starting a community garden to promote food security and fruit and vegetable consumption will have somewhat different needs and resources to a group of residents wanting to rehabilitate derelict land between their houses, the basic steps to starting a community garden are similar whoever the initiator is.

There is a section in this kit specifically for professional community builders. See Notes For Health, Housing, Council and Community workers.

[edit] Deciding to start a community garden

The first step in initiating a new community garden is deciding that it’s the right project to be working on. Is there enough interest, energy and resource to get the project going? Would a community garden be an effective way to address some of the needs that exist in your community: for open space, food security, social opportunities, health promotion, environmental improvement, or training? (This is a more useful initial question to consider than “is there a demonstrated ‘need’ for a community garden?”) Consider some of the other options:

• Could you join and support an existing community garden in your area?
• Could your particular area of interest be a sub-project at an established garden?
• Would another form of ‘gardening in community’ be more appropriate to your situation – gleaning and redistributing produce from neighbourhood fruit trees, gardening collectively in people’s backyards, joining or starting a native plant revegetation project, or making sensory gardens on sidewalks?

[edit] Form a working group

At this initial stage of the process, you may choose to organise and promote an open public meeting, inviting many people to get involved, or to use your networks to form a small start-up group and invite more people’s involvement later on. The number of people needed in a start-up working group will depend on your unique situation and the resources you have access to. One or two Local Council workers, with the support and resources of their department may be able to get a sustainable community garden project up and running; five is probably a minimum number for a group of residents.

Finding working group members:

• Contact local environment groups, local gardening, organic and permaculture groups, residents associations, and neighbourhood watch groups. Get an article in their newsletter.
• Make flyers and put them up in community centres, shops, schools, etc
• Do a letterbox drop of the immediate area, particularly if you have a site in mind
• Use your personal networks and invite people directly
• If you’re setting up the garden as part of your job, you might include other workers in your team, people from your client group or target group, and people from other local organisations.
• Consider using local media

See the promotion section for more ideas

[edit] Public meetings

Present the benefits of community gardens (see the first section of this kit for information). Invite someone from an established community garden to share their story. Slides or photos in PowerPoint presentations can also be effective. Make sure you have an experienced facilitator to run the meeting. You might invite a respected local, or someone from the Local Council or other organisation to facilitate for you. Also see the Decision Making and Meetings notes in this kit. Be prepared to address concerns that people may raise, for example:

• noise
• smelly compost (have systems in place to make sure compost is well-managed and doesn’t smell)
• carparking
• enclosing pubic space (will be enhancing the space and community will still have access)

For a checklist to help organise community meetings see www.communitywise.wa.gov.au/tools/organise.htm

[edit] Community Garden tours

Don’t start your garden from scratch! There is no substitute for visiting established community gardens and talking to the people involved. There are over 30 community gardens in South Australia who have all gone through the start up process – they know what it takes and have learnt lots from their experiences. A map of community gardens in SA, including contact details is available by phoning 1300 737 612. Join the SA Community gardeners’ email listserve to keep in touch with local community garden events by going to http://au.groups.yahoo.com/SAComGd. Community gardens are also listed at www.communityfoods.org.au. Garden visits or tours generate and sustain excitement about your project and spark lots of ideas. An invitation to a community garden tour can be a great way to attract new people to your working group. Car-pool or see if your Local Council has a community bus available. Russ Grayson and Fiona Campbell suggest questions to ask when visiting other gardens:

• how did the garden start?
• what type of organisational structure you have?
• what do you do about public liability insurance?
• where do you obtain resources (mulch, compost, seeds etc)?
• what are your links to local government?
• how are you funded?
• how do you make decisions, solve problems and resolve conflict?
• how do you pass on skills to new gardeners and improve everyone’s skills?

See Russ and Fiona’s guide to starting a community garden. Take photos, keep notes, and discuss what you have learned and use it to make decisions about how you want to organise and manage your community garden. Keep in touch with the people you meet so you can call on them for (and offer) advice and support as your garden progresses.

[edit] Develop your vision and plan

You will need to develop a clear shared vision and intention for your garden. This will be particularly important at the initiating stages, and will continue to evolve as your garden grows and develops. It is important not to rush ahead with logistics before allowing time for this process. Your work towards developing a vision and making a plan for the garden may happen in your start-up group, at public meetings, or with a client group. It will probably happen in a combination of ways, sometimes involving the wider community, sometimes just the core working group. Design your planning sessions to invite everyone to share their ideas and hopes. See the Learning, Education and Training section for ideas about creating welcoming spaces. Plan visioning processes that help to clarify people’s hopes, values, needs, and wants for the garden, and for the community as a whole. Invite people to talk about what really matters to them – this will not only give momentum to the project, but also strengthen the connections between people involved in the process. When questions are framed in this more general way, there is often significant common ground among participants’ hopes for the kind of community (environment, public spaces, etc) they would like to see. Visualisations can be a useful part of this process, assisting people to reflect on their experiences, knowledge and values before sharing ideas with the larger group. Suggestions for visioning processes follow. Work towards developing a ‘vision statement’ and aims for your garden. You will eventually need to make decisions about your garden: whether it will be a communally gardened space and/or have individual plots, whether it will be organic, if it will target a particular group of people for involvement, what will be on site Once you have agreed on a shared vision, you can begin to plan your project – setting goals, working out what tasks need to be done, finding out what skills people have to contribute (see skills auditing), making timelines, and getting to work. See the sections in this kit about making meetings go welll, and about planning training sessions.

[edit] Finding a place to grow your garden

Some groups begin with a particular site in mind, perhaps a vacant block in their neighbourhood, or the land surrounding the school or community centre where they work. Others develop a plan for a garden then look for land to work with. Community gardens can be located on:

• Council owned land
• Existing parks
• Grounds of Housing Trust and other flats
• Grounds of community centres and neighbourhood houses
• Church grounds
• Hospital and Health Centre grounds
• School, kindergarten and childcare centre grounds
• Universities
• Unused private land, particularly when neglected
• Land owned by businesses
• Land near railway tracks and stations
• Rooftops (see www.cityfarmer.org/subrooftops.html)
• Old bowling greens
• Roadsides

Keep your eyes and imagination open and talk to people in your area to come up with ideas for potential locations. Approaching the Local Council for advice and support is often the first step for start-up groups looking for land. See working with Local Government section. You may find it useful to approach an environment or community development officer as a first point of contact. Information in the Site Design section will help you decide if a particular piece of land is suitable for your project.

[edit] Security of tenure

This is a big issue for many community gardens. It’s hard to plan for the development of an orchard if you only have a year to use the land. Start by getting a lease – a year to start with and the option for 5 yr renewals. Try to increase your security by getting the garden incorporated into Council policy, or its master plan. You might also investigate zoning regulations and green space requirements to help secure your land.

[edit] While you’re waiting to find the site...

It can take time to find the right place, and to negotiate use. There are lots of things you can do to develop your community garden before you get your hands in the soil at your site:

• Keep visiting and forming networks with other community gardens
• Use libraries and the internet to research community gardens in other states and countries
• Attend other gardens’ working bees as a group
• Build your skills by holding or attending workshops and by gardening in each other’s homes
• Start a small garden bed in a community centre, aged care facility, etc
• Keep getting to know each other and developing your vision. Eat together, garden together.
• Work on developing management systems for the garden
• Learn how to propagate plants and start a nursery so you have plants ready to go when you’re ready to begin on site.

[edit] Ideas for visioning sessions

Hot potatoes

A “Hot potato” brainstorm is great for getting the creative juices flowing and encouraging a little lateral thinking. Divide people into small groups. Each group starts with a sheet of butcher’s paper with one question written on it (a different question for each group). Each group has a different coloured pen. Groups work on their sheet for 3-5 minutes, brainstorming and listing short responses. In effective brainstorming, all ideas are accepted, it’s quantity rather than quality that’s needed, all judgement is withheld, and speed is of the essence. At the sound of a “gong”, each sheet is immediately dashed over to the next group (hence the hot potato title). Group keeps their own pens. They read the topic and what’s written so far, add new ideas and, if desired, enhance or ‘piggy back’ on previous ideas. At subsequent gongs, the sheets rotate around to each group, with great haste at each change over – this enhances the fun of it all and keeps everyone on their toes. The last step before sharing is for each group to receive back its initial sheet, have a read, and prepare for any sharing that’s planned. One of the benefits of this strategy is that each group is already familiar with the topic, has thought about it, and most people have read most of the things written. Therefore, sharing can be accelerated before moving on to whatever discussion (acceptance/ rejection, prioritising, deferring for later consideration etc.) or publishing is desired. Ideas for questions

• Who (individuals & groups) will be involved with our community garden in 5 years?
• What built things (large & small) will be here at the garden in 5 years time?
• What things will be overheard (statements, questions, exclamations etc) at / about the garden here in 5 years time?
• Imagine that the answer is: “our community garden” – what are the questions?
• What varieties of plants/ animals will be growing/ living here in 5 years time?

This process was contributed by Ross Craig.

A Community Garden Visualisation

This can be read out to people participating in your visioning process.

Sit or lie down in a comfortable position. Close your eyes. Take three deep breaths, releasing any stress or tension you feel in your body. Let go of any thoughts. Just be. Relax. Be aware of any tension in your face. Feel it drain away. Hunch your shoulders. Now relax. Stretch out your hands and arms, tighten and release.

In front of you is a long hallway. Walk through this hallway, until you come to a set of steps. Walk down these steps. You are on a landing. You open a door and step into a garden. As you look around, you realize it is your community garden. It is so familiar, and yet what do you know about this place? Spend some time exploring your garden using your senses.

Look at the kinds of trees and plants you have here. How do they interact? Do they attract a lot of bird life? Do they produce food? What is their purpose? Do you have fruit trees and chooks? Where are they placed within your garden? Observe some of the other features in your garden. Let your garden speak to you. How do the individual plants, trees, flowers, water features, animals, etc. contribute to the whole garden? Take in the essence of what you feel, see and hear around you. Become one with nature, with the plants, the animals, the birds, the insects, the soil, the elements. They all have a place within the bigger picture, which is always changing from day to day, season to season, from birth to living to dying to decaying and recycling to start the process all over again.

You see your garden as it is and than as it could be. Sense a new possibility of creating, expanding beyond the boundaries of what you already know. Use this possibility to imagine what your garden is like in 2-5 years. You see a gathering of people interacting, laughing and having fun. They are sharing ideas, experiences, and practical applications. These people are working together and yet they are doing their own thing. The people have common interests, common goals.

As you walk around observing, you become aware of what a group of individuals can create together. Do you see yourself having a role within the garden? What opportunities would open up for you here? How would you contribute? Have you come here as a visitor or are you part of this community? You have a choiceWalk through this garden as you see it now, creating possibilities for the future.It is now time to go. Take one last look around, remembering any specific thoughts and ideas you want to bring back with you, from either your own garden or the community garden.

In the distance you can see the door. Walk over to it. Open the door and walk to the steps. You climb up the steps. You are at the top, looking down the long hallway. Begin your walk towards the end of your journey, being aware of your body on the chair.

Stretch your arms, legs and body, bringing your awareness back into the room. Listen to the sounds around you. When you are ready, slowly open your eyes. Invite people to share what they ‘saw’ – perhaps in small groups or by writing on pieces of paper and putting them up for everyone to read.

This visualisation was written by Lynda McCarty

[edit] A start up budget for your garden

Planning a budget requires a reasonably well developed vision for the garden - will it be a small herb garden or an education centre with a passive solar classroom? Will it have fruit trees? Animals? Water features? Children’s play ground? Raised beds for people with disabilities? The design section of this kit provides some suggestions for options to consider if you are at this stage of planning. For many community gardens, much of the cost is incurred in the initial stages. Seeking in kind support, and reusing ‘waste’ resources can reduce many costs. See Finding Funding and Resources section for ideas about applying for grants, getting inkind support, and finding ways to cut expenses.

Costs to take into account

Costs will vary greatly according to the project, but some to consider include costs involved with consulting/ involving the community in the garden project - producing and printing a leaflet or poster, an advertisement in the local paper, a mail out or letter box drop to local residents, hiring a community hall for a public meeting, phone calls and general administrative expenses. Training for people in the start-up group and for people getting involved. Public liability insurance is essential for all community gardens. It will be required by many groups such as schools who may use the garden, and covers the garden against charges of negligence if a visitor is hurt at the garden. The price may range from $400 - $700/year or more. Ask local council or a community centre if they may consider extending their own insurance to cover the garden. Insurance for fire and theft is also recommended. Services may need to be installed if the land does not have them. Water supply is essential, and many community gardens will also need electricity and phone access. As well as the costs of fittings and so on, the labour may have to be carried out by a professional. Local councils may ‘loan’ workers. You will need a tool library containing basic tools and equipment suited to the work which will be done in the particular garden. This may include a couple of forks and shovels, a leaf rake, a soil rake, a mattock, wheelbarrows, several hand tools such as trowels; watering cans, hoses and fittings, and possibly irrigation equipment. More specialised equipment, such as pruning saws, or propagation equipment may also be needed, depending on the project. Obtaining good quality, safe tools should be a priority. Also take into account the varying abilities and sizes of people using tools such as shovels – it may be appropriate to have several sizes available. Secure storage for tools is also vital. Garden establishment materials such as compost and mulch, materials to build beds and make pathways should be considered. Council may be able to help with left over or used paved or bed construction materials. A small library can be a valuable resource for a community garden. It may only contain twenty carefully selected titles, again, chosen according to the particular needs of the community garden. Investigate non-profit organisations such as Urban Ecology Australia and the Permaculture Association of South Australia who may supply relevant books at a discount price. A specific grant application could be made to establish a community library. Some community gardens have permanent or occasional paid staff, such as a co-ordinator, training facilitator, or design consultant whose wages may need to be covered.