You may not have heard, but community gardens are becoming more and more mainstream. It's relatively easy to understand why so many people have found value in this particular type of gardening technique. It gives everyone in the community or even a specific neighborhood an opportunity to contribute something to the greater good while simultaneously enjoying a portion of the garden for themselves.
Benefits of Community Gardening
There are also a lot of other benefits to community gardening. It's more cost-effective than growing a garden completely on your own and it's far more cost-effective than going to the supermarket and purchasing everything. Furthermore, the food is likely to be more healthy because it's coming straight out of a garden that you have had a hand in preparing as opposed to being trucked in from hundreds of miles away.
How Community Gardens Work
For some time, the only community gardens that existed were in eclectic communities that were making a conscious effort to do things differently. However, this is something that quickly caught on, especially in neighborhoods where there is simply not that much land available for people to have individual gardens. Community gardens provide everyone in the area with access to good, nutritious and healthy food. Some of them require that everyone involved pay a nominal fee while others simply require that each individual sign up for certain days and help take care of the garden. Doing things like planting or weeding in order to ensure that the garden can flourish.
Anyone that has ever had access to a community garden of this type knows how valuable it can really be. This is especially true for anyone that struggles to come up with enough funds to go to the supermarket every week in order to purchase the food that families need to be healthy. Having a community garden on hand takes a lot of the pressure off when it comes to financial concerns and it also gives everyone something to be proud of. When you know that you have helped care for the garden and you are now getting food directly from it, you feel a certain amount of pride. This is increased tenfold when you realize that your efforts are not just helping you and your family, but everyone in the community.
Community gardening also provides everyone an opportunity to come together for the greater good. It's an ideal way to get involved in the community and get to know other individuals who share the same concerns. It's truly one of the best things that you can do to become more involved with people that you live close to. At the same time, you are getting something out of your efforts for yourself . Therefore, it's easy to see why so many people have gotten behind this movement. Something that began to take place in a few select communities is now popular all over the country. With the passage of time, there is no doubt that it will grow even more popular as it begins to show up in more and more communities.
The Supply Can’t Keep Up With The Demand
In many cities around the world, there’s long wait lists for community gardens. Even years! That’s why we, at YardYum, came up with a solution: to use people’s yards as community gardens. In a nutshell, YardYum is all about connecting homeowners who have land with their neighbors who are looking for land to grow a garden. Sign up for YardYum and look for available plots nearby!
Author
Kane Miller from YardYum
Kane has a background in engineering, but now focuses on environmental sustainability. He grew up on a 12-acre hobby farm and was fortunate to have been introduced to organic gardening at a young age.