Why Community Gardens are Valuable

Community gardens are gardens designed to improve a community. These gardens can be found at schools, parks, housing projects, places of worship, in vacant lots, and on private properties. While they all serve as catalysts for bringing people together, some of them focus on growing food for donation to the hungry, some on education, some on nutrition and exercise, still others on selling produce for income. Some simply provide a venue for sharing the love of gardening.

The concept of community gardens developed long before the Victory Gardens of World War II, but today's gardens encompass much more. They include not only gardens where people grow food together for their own consumption, but also donation gardens combating hunger, educational gardens teaching adults or school children, market gardens supplementing incomes, and gardens providing mental or physical therapy.

Here are five ways that community gardens are valuable:

Building Communities

A community garden, if put in the right place and sufficiently supported, provides a public demonstration that residents can build something beautiful together. If residents can work together to create a productive green space, they can use those same skills to address critical problems like crime, homelessness, and blight plaguing their communities. In parks and other highly public places, the regular presence of responsible adults can reduce crime and promote productive activities.

Improving Nutrition and Reducing Hunger

Poor nutrition is widespread. Most Houston area residents and many Americans eat few fresh fruits, herbs, and vegetables and their health suffers. Community gardens teach people how to grow the best tasting varieties of fresh, pesticide-free produce, making delicious, nutritious produce more available and appreciated. This increases the chance people will eat the targeted five to nine servings of produce that cancer and heart authorities recommend.

For the less fortunate, gardens can reduce hunger. Hunger is a chronic problem in Texas; more than half a million people are estimated to go without food for part of the month. If all were lined up, the line would reach 140 miles. Half would be children, and most of the other half would be elderly or disabled. With regular work, community vegetable gardens typically produce about 500 servings per year in a 40 ft. by 5 ft. raised bed. The best gardens have produced more than twice this amount. Fresh produce from community gardens supplements the canned supplies that stock the shelves of food pantries and homeless shelters.

Helping the Environment

In addition to providing the community with nutritious food, today's organic community gardens teach and inspire sustainable land use. As our population continues to move from rural areas to urban centers, most of our agrarian heritage has been left behind or forgotten. Now we have no system in place for teaching or experiencing ways to manage and use wisely the land that we have around us.

Most people do not know how to control pests, irrigate the land or improve the soil in an environmentally friendly way. American cities could have a better ecological balance. In most Texas cities pests are too many; water bills are too high; and beneficial creatures are too few. The soils are poor, yet, regrettably, organic wastes go to landfills. Community Gardens can teach sound land management and make ventures into food production successful. School gardens that complement and enhance classroom curricula can also serve as valuable demonstration gardens for the surrounding community.

Providing Income

Despite Houston's 12 month growing season for nearly all vegetables and fruits, it may be the only very large city in the nation without a significant fresh produce industry. Houston and other Texas cities have large numbers of unemployed people, vast amounts of unused land, yet few truck farmers. Community gardens can help deal with these problems. They can help gardeners learn how to grow food organically with a minimum of effort, and how to sell their crops to neighbors, local restaurants, and caterers who are desperately searching for sources of locally grown, good tasting produce. Subscription gardening (ongoing contract sales to a group of people) and Green Markets (small scale, periodic markets with sales of produce by grower) are other marketing options for gardeners who have smaller quantities of produce to sell.

Getting Physical Exercise, Increasing Health and Pride

Health and physical exercise or therapy are other possible aims of community gardens. Taking care of plants, watching birds and butterflies, enjoying the outdoors, and getting exercise are all good for body and spirit. Community gardens can help people suffering from stress and many forms of mental and physical illness.

Urban Harvest supports community garden through its classes, volunteer coordination, brochures, events, and its website. We provide those interested in starting community gardens with information on design, construction, fundraising, and organization for a garden plus how to grow, harvest, use and sell their produce. We support existing community gardens by providing free classes as well as publicity, new volunteers, donated materials, and events where gardeners can share experiences. Urban Harvest works with low income groups and individuals in collaboration with other nonprofit organizations and public institutions to assist these gardens.