FRC: Community Garden
"Fresh air, green leaves and earth can heal the hurting heart."
A Community Garden is a wonderful way to draw families into full participation in your family resource center. Engage community members in:
- Planning, preparing, and establishing the gardens
- Cultivation and maintenance
- Harvest of crops for food and marketable goods such as vegetables, fruit, herbs, and flowers
- Natural craft projects
- Education in nutrition, culture, botany, ecology, history, and literature
Theme Gardens are also a fabulous way to involve families and children in the creation of Community Gardens. We have seen the following theme gardens blooming with tremendous success:
- Native Plants
- Culture Gardens
- Butterfly Gardens
- Shakespeare Gardens
A Note About Gardening Tools and Equipment
The quantity and kind of tools you buy will depend on your budget and the scale of your project. Although the initial cost will be a little higher, It is very important to buy quality tools. Well made tools will stand up to hard usage and will be more cost effective in the long run. (You may be able to get some of your gardening supplies donated by local businesses and corporations.) While gardening tools are not dangerous when used properly, it is important that all gardeners be instructed in proper usage and maintenance of garden equipment.
Basic Gardening Equipment
Spades, shovels, spading forks, iron rakes, hoes, trowels, leaf rakes, wheelbarrows, pruning shears, watering cans, knives, tool cleaning brushes, stakes, twine, hoses and nozzles, and harvest baskets.
Garden Signs
Signs help identify your community garden, and provide a great opportunity to engage families. Encourage families to create signs that identify the plants that are being grown and why these plants in particular were selected. Information about your gardens and their contents can be become a monthly entry in your FRC's newsletter.
Choosing a Site
Here are few things to consider when choosing the site for your garden:
- Accessibility: Your garden should be readily accessible to the families that will be using the garden.
- Soil: Garden soil must be checked for contamination and suitability. Your county’s Cooperative Extension Office can provide assistance.
- Sunlight: Most vegetables and flowers need a minimum of six hours of full sun daily.
- Water: An adequate, accessible water supply is essential. There are a number of systems available: drip irrigation, overhead watering, or manual watering. Be sure to consider the costs and conservation of resources in your planning. Mulching will help retain moisture.
Preparing the Site
Soil Conditions: Establishing a garden begins with preparing the site. Before breaking ground, check the soil moisture by squeezing a handful of soil into a ball in the palm of your hand. It should keep its shape when you open your hand, but crumble when touched. If soil sticks to your tools or shoes, it is too wet to dig. If, on the other hand, the soil is very dry, water it thoroughly and wait a day or two before proceeding. You can prepare your plots manually, using spading forks. This is labor intensive, will engage more people, and is energy efficient and inexpensive. However, rototillers are highly efficient for the preparation of garden plots, and have many other practical uses throughout the gardening season, such as mixing in compost, clearing weedy areas, and preparing seed beds.
Helpful Links
Garden Guides
www.gardenguides.com
This site has lots of good info! There are growing/harvesting tips on specific vegetables, companion planting to discourage pests, a good section called Tips and Techniques, and a Kitchen section.
Junior Master Gardener
www.jmgkids.us
This is a service of Texas A&M University’s horticulture program. They offer a Junior Master Gardener program (an international youth gardening program) and provide information about how to register a group, a Leader’s Guide, leadership and community service projects, etc.
Gardencom.com Garden Search Portal
www.gardencom.com
If you like gardening, this is a site to spend hours in! There is a huge list of garden topics and many links in each of those categories.
