Community gardens are becoming more important in towns and cities across America.
They can be small or large, have several gardeners or be a project sponsored by an organization or town with many helpers.
The interest has been sparked by several factors.
More people are getting into the “Green Movement. ” Growing concerns about pollution, ozone problems and chemicals used in growing food are leading people to think about gardens and their positive effects.
Gardening is also known to have positive effects in metal health and relaxation. Add to that fresh air and exercise has made gardening the fouth most popular hobby there is. Gardening can also be a family event.
The last reason is more and more people are seeing gardens and landscaping as a form of art or at least beauty. Gardening and landscaping can add value to a house and increase the propery value in entire sections of a community.
Community gardens are being set up at schools, vacant lots and many businesses and parks. They are usually sponsored by the town or a non profit organization. Some of the more interesting gardens are those that encourage children to participate and learn about gardening through gardens that are set up for them to play in such as touching gardens or Sunflower houses. Most children enjoy gardening and watching a small seed turn into a plant.
Other communtity gardens are historical gardens that are set up around restored houses and offer both history and often-times beautiful art through architecture and sculptures.
Victory Gardens, a garden project started by Roosevelt in WWII to save on food supplies, help with war costs and to help the mental outlook of people in during the war are again catching on and numerous groups are offering information and supplies to encourage people to plant gardens.
One big plus in community gardens os that it brings people together that may never have met and gives them a bond that lasts past the garden season.
The garden plots in a community garden can be a variety of sizes but 10 foot by 10 foot seems to be a popular size with city gardens sometimes being 10 foot by five foot. The plaots are smaller to make room for more gardeners. By laying out a good garden plant you can grow a lot of food in this space. Square foot gardening, companion gardeng and rotaing crops make this possible and are the base of more organic gardening practices.
Below is a link to Wikipedia that tell more about community gardens and has several interesting links to community gardens in the United Sates and overseas.
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