Why Community Gardens are Valuable
Community gardens are designed to improve a community. The concept of
community gardens developed long before the Victory Gardens of World War II,
the oldest known in the United States is about 250 years old in Winston-Salem,
NC. Today's gardens encompass a wide range of purposes. 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. Some simply provide a venue for sharing the love of
gardening. What all these gardens have in common is that they are the catalyst
that brings people together working toward a common purpose.
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 also use those 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: Poor nutrition is widespread.
Most Houston area residents and many Americans
eat few fresh fruits, herbs, and vegetables and their
health suffers. Community gardens can teach people
how to grow the best tasting varieties of fresh,
pesticide-free produce, making delicious, nutritious
produce more available. Community gardens
increase the chance people will eat the targeted five
to nine servings of produce that health authorities recommend.
Reducing 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. About half
of these are children, and most of the other half are
elderly or disabled. Community gardens can help
reduce hunger. With regular work, community
vegetable gardens typically produce about 500
servings per year in a 40 ft. by 5 ft. raised bed.
Fresh produce from community gardens
supplements the canned supplies that stock the shelves of
food pantries and homeless shelters.
Improving 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 wise management and use of the land we have around us.
In most Texas cities pests are too many; water bills are too high; and beneficial
creatures are too few. Most people do not know how to control pests, irrigate the
land or improve the soil in an environmentally friendly way. 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. 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, also known as CSA
(community supported agriculture), and Green Markets (small scale, periodic
markets with sales of produce by the grower) are other marketing options for
gardeners who have smaller quantities of produce to sell.
Improving Physical and Mental Health: Health, 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.