Community Garden – Grow Vegetables, Flowers and Relationships

Joining a community garden project is a way to grow vegetables and flowers without owning land. Members of a community garden are assigned raised beds or plots within the garden and allowed to grow whatever they wish in their garden spot. One of the unexpected things that grows well in community gardens is friendships and a deeper sense of community.

Grow Fresh, Organic Vegetables in Community Garden

Generally speaking, a raised bed garden plot in a community garden is about four feet wide and 15-20 feet long (each community garden will be laid off differently). That is enough ground space to a grow a wide variety of fresh organic vegetables that will help feed the family all summer. Tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, radishes, yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers, corn, beans, peas and potatoes can all be grown in a standard sized community garden raised bed plot and still have room to tuck in a few flowers to grow around the edges of the garden spot.

Gardener’s can be absolutely certain that their vegetables are 100% organic when they grow the vegetables themselves. It also helps eliminate the risks of E.Coli and other potentially harmful bacteria caused by unsanitary handling of the vegetables during harvest and transport.

Community Gardens Bloom with Fresh Flowers

Fresh vegetables are not the only things that can be planted and grown in a community garden. Flowering annuals can be grown to provide a steady supply of fresh cut flowers for home décor all summer. Plant a few sunflowers and dry the seed heads at harvest time and have a good supply of bird food for the fall and winter.

Grow Relationships In Community Garden

Meeting and getting to know other people from the neighborhood is another benefit of community gardening. There is already something in common, gardening.

For people interested in saving money by planting and growing a garden, but have never done it before, most community gardens have a local Master Gardener available at times to answer new gardener questions. Experienced gardeners that have garden plots within the community garden will usually be glad to answer any gardening questions or lend a helping hand to a first time gardener. Even long time gardener’s occasionally run into a plant problem they’ve never seen before and need a little advice.

Being a member of a community garden is a valuable summer experience, one which people walk away from with baskets of fresh vegetables and flowers, plus friendships and gardening knowledge that lasts a lifetime.