When I talk to people about the community garden here at Penn State, one topic that frequently comes up is the idea that a community garden should be just as much about community as it should be about gardening, and the question of how to best foster community involvement. I just ran across this article from NPR that discusses different philosophies for organizing a community garden, and attempts to tackle the issue of whether it’s better to have a truly communal garden where all of the labor and produce is shared or a community garden which is divided into plots tended by individual gardeners (as we do here at Penn State). I’ll dedicate a future post to what I believe are important factors to consider when starting a community garden, and share some of my most rewarding and frustrating experiences. But here’s a short excerpt:
And still, the debate continues. Because there are still a lot of people doing communal-style gardens. And they say it may be true that the most troublesome part of a community garden is the community. Yet if you can pull it off, the community that forms around a garden is, in fact, far more valuable than the vegetables.
The full story from NPR can be found here:
At The Community Garden, It’s Community That’s The Hard Part
