Published by City Farmer, Canada's Office of Urban Agriculture

Subject:

Allotments/Community gardens and Urban Agriculture

City Farmer's Links To Community Garden Resources and Urban Farms

Here you will find new books, organizations and links to community gardens. This area of urban agriculture research is always in the news. Gardens go in and the community rejoices. But then there is the tragedy of the loss of a garden.

Replacing Neglect with Peach Trees - Philadelphia

"Real estate professionals in the city know that green space sells houses. Heather A. Petrone, associate broker for Joseph D. Petrone Real Estate and president of the Greater Philadelphia Association of Realtors, said she regularly includes proximity to community gardens in property descriptions. People who may be moving back to the city from suburban areas, where 'everybody has an acre,' are especially interested in the gardens, Ms. Petrone said. " Posted October 22, 2007

Women's Garden Cycles Bike Tour

Three women embarked upon a bike trip from Washington, DC to Montreal, Canada to document community garden projects. They are currently working on making a documentary out of the experience. From July through October they looked at sites in Baltimore, Philadephia, New Jersey, New York City, Montreal, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

Community Garden at Flemington in final of "Australia's Best Backyard"

Video clip. "Number of Plots: 124. Dominant Language Groups: Arabic, Turkish, Vietnamese, Haka, Tigris and English. Flemington community garden, the biggest in Melbourne, was rebuilt under the supervision of landscape architect and builder Steve Beavis. Construction took six months to complete. The garden covers a 3/4 acre site adjacent to the flats to the rear of 120 Racecourse Road. Gardeners are many and diverse and very proud of their new garden." Posted October 8, 2007

The Beginnings: Strathcona Community Garden - Media Images, Slideshow
The Beginnings: Strathcona Community Garden - Documents

"City Farmer (founded in 1978) began this project in 1984 to help promote urban agriculture. In 1985 City Farmer hired a coordinator to develop the community garden. Positive support came from the local community, from federal and municipal governments and from businesses. In 1985 a two year lease was signed between the City of Vancouver and City Farmer (Echo Energy Society). In 1986 the local gardeners set up their own organization, the Strathcona Community Garden Society, to run the site." Posted October 3, 2007

MontrŽal's Community Gardens

"Community gardens have been part of MontrŽal's landscape for several years. Since the new city was created in 2002, MontrŽal is home to 97 community gardens and approximately 8,200 plots. Eighteen boroughs offer plots of land to their citizens for gardening. In some boroughs, a gardening instructor visits the garden regularly to give advice to gardeners. Some boroughs offer adapted gardens for persons with reduced mobility." See "MontrŽal's community gardening program" [1.4 MB Đ 15 pages] an excellent paper for download in the left hand column. Posted August 16, 2007

The Greenest Thumb in New York

"Green Thumb, a 29-year-old Parks Department program that oversees more than 650 city-owned community gardens tilled by nearly 20,000 gardeners, has suggested to Mr. Ramlakhan that he plant at Baisley Park Community Garden, a narrow patch of green near the Long Island Rail Road tracks in South Jamaica, Queens. But he wants to be back to his old, spacious garden in Far Rockaway, the garden where he made history." Posted June 23, 2007

A Lot To Lose: London's Disappearing Allotments

Report by The London Assembly. "The relentless pressure on land in the capital, the need to build at high densities, and, in some cases, neglect and disuse, mean that allotments are slowly but surely being eroded. ... Among our recommendations are an online search tool for allotments in London, greater sharing of information on supply and demand across the capital and the use of boroughsŐ planning powers to compel high density housing developers to allocate land for allotment use." (Excellent report with maps!) Posted January 12, 2007

Produce to the People: Community gardens and farmers' markets challenge convenience stores and fast-food joints

"The centerpiece of Fresno Metro Ministry's efforts has been establishing community gardens throughout Fresno. These are particularly prized by the city's large population of Hmong refugees, rural people from the Laos area who sided with the United States in the Vietnam War and migrated here afterward. In Fresno, many Hmong live crowded into small apartments, barely scraping by on public assistance. Depression and other psychological problems are common, and childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes (often associated with poor diets) are on the rise." Posted November 2, 2006

Where a Community Grows - Philadelphia

"Planters and plantings of the Southwark/Queen Village Community Garden have changed, but after 30 years, crops and camaraderie flourish. The garden, one of the oldest in a city famous for its community gardens (there are 500 of them here), has 62 individual plots. It also has communal plots for flowers and herbs, an apple, peach and pear orchard, a children's garden and grape arbor, a raspberry patch, and an apiary, whose three beehives produce rich wildflower honey that the gardeners sell." Updated October 27, 2006

Fly From Space to Community Gardens in BC Using Google Earth

City Farmer created 'place-markers' in Google Earth, which allow you to fly from the sky to different garden sites; that is virtually. You can visit individually chosen sites or you can push the 'play' button (an arrow under the Places window) to automatically fly to all the gardens. See Victoria's Capital City gardens for instance and then fly back to UBC's Acadia gardens. Simply click on our link to download a tiny 'kmz' file (unzip the .zip file first) and then open the file in your Google Earth program. Updated September 27, 2006

BC Community Gardens Up Close - Aerial Photos

We've created a slideshow of aerial photos of community gardens in British Columbia; most of these are higher resolution images than can be found on Google Earth. See the Fraser Street Garden in Vancouver, or visit us in the Compost Demonstration Garden next to our neighbours, the Maple Street Community Garden. We've also included photos of some of the gardens at ground level for those who don't like heights. Posted September 27, 2006

Benefits and Barriers to Implementing and Managing Well Rooted Community Gardens in Waterloo Region, Ontario

Masters Thesis. "Incorporate community gardens into land use plans. Look for suitable areas and designated them as areas for community gardens. Offer incentives to developers who put community gardens into their development plans. Incentives can including being lenient on zoning, awarding developers for "green building" and showing the financial benefits to the developer of incorporating community gardens into their plans." Updated September 13, 2006

Whitmire: Study Gateway Greening Community Garden Areas, Reversing Urban Decline

"As a community development agency, we hope to show that greening projects have positive effects on neighborhoods and their residents. Some of the positive effects we are examining are crime reduction both to property and people, increased property values and improvement of property, improvements in the overall appearance of the neighborhood, and increased feelings of safety." Posted June 9, 2006

The Effect of Community Gardens on Neighboring Property Values

"We find that the opening of a community garden has a statistically significant positive impact on residential properties within 1000 feet of the garden, and that the impact increases over time. We find that gardens have the greatest impact in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods. Higher quality gardens have the greatest positive impact. Finally, we find that the opening of a garden is associated with other changes in the neighborhood, such as increasing rates of homeownership, and thus may be serving as catalysts for economic redevelopment of the community." (Complete 49 page paper is available for download at no cost.) Posted June 7, 2006

The Allotment Book by Andi Clevely

"Open to all the new eco-gardening techniques, and the various weird and wonderful ways people make use of their plots, contents include: the history of allotments from 19th century origins, through wartime Dig for Victory, to the cosmopolitan communities of today; features photos and interviews with current plot-holders; planning your perfect allotment finding it, assessing it, clearing the ground and working out what to grow." Posted May 30, 2006

Edmonton Community Garden Network Resource Manual PDF 107 pages (2.3 MB)

"In 2002, the Edmonton and area has seen the numbers of community gardens blossom to about 28 active projects, and several are in the planning stage including many school community projects. These gardens provide an opportunity to communities of diverse needs and circumstances including: the elderly, teens, low income, newly arrived immigrants, young children, and people with a variety of physical and mental capacities. In 2001, over 835 families are involved in local community garden projects. In 2001, approximately 240,000 sq.ft. in land is used in community gardening." Posted March 26, 2006

City Farm Edmonton

"We are in our first year of operation and have thus far put down a clay oven, a strawbale raised-bed mandala garden, and a 'children's barn' or building area. We have designs on putting some buildings up, but there is no shortage of development work to do and our focus is currently on programming for school groups, drop-in open access, camps, and events." Posted March 26, 2006

University of Alberta Campus Community Garden

"We planted 12 tomato plants and they did incredibly well! We bought them from the Farmer's Market as seedlings. We had a good amount of rain, but unfortunately with the rain came cloudy skies. We had more tomatoes than we could handle almost, but most did not ripen on the vine; we needed a sunnier season. So, so, so many green tomatoes though! And many did ripen on our counters afterwards. I had tomatoes all season long anyway. " Posted March 26, 2006

The Secret World of Community Gardens

"At the Strathcona garden, someone has done their bit to bring cultures together by assembling a collection of 'espalier' fruit trees. 'Espalier' refers to the way the trees are trained along wires. There are in fact about 200 trees comprising a huge number of different varieties. Wandering up and down the rows you will find Johnagolds from the USA, trees from Germany, the UK and even a Drap d'Or apple tree - a French variety that can be traced back to 1628." Posted March 19, 2006

Montreal's Community Gardening Program

"Responding to its citizen's requests, the city of Montreal created 76 community gardens with 6,400 allotments since 1975. These serve some 10,000 people a year, which makes the program one of the most significant in North America. (Since the merge in 2002, the number of gardens within Montreal is now 97 community gardens and 8195 allotments.) ... An estimated 10,000 people, or about 1.5 per cent of the city's adult population, take advantage of this program..." Posted December 7, 2005

Victory Community Garden in Kabale, Uganda

"This garden project is the beginning of the development of sustainable local answers to problems of land fragmentation and subsistence farming. The gardens have been developed to work within the Ugandan Government's economic and ecological policies; such as to encourage market gardening and to protect soil from erosion and degradation." Posted June 29, 2005

Sowing and Reaping on Borrowed Land: Garden City Harvest's Community Gardens

19,000 word Masters Thesis - "Community gardening had immediate and tangible effects, such as decreased grocery bills, more control over the food one consumes, and the attainment of gardening skills and knowledge. Most gardeners hade a positive outlook on their experience, highlighting community building, access to land and resources, attainment of knowledge and participation in the production of their food as the most valuable aspects of their experience." Posted May 2, 2005

Urban Agriculture, Garden Allotments in Zurich, Switzerland

"Garden allotments consist of sizeable pieces of land divided into a series of small parcels which are used by individuals and families as a place to grow a wide array of flowers, vegetables and fruit. In Zurich, they are often found abutting or adjacent to forested areas, creating an urban landscape that in parts looks more like the country than the city. Each allotment usually features a small shed or miniature 'house' which is used to store gardening equipment and other items such as barbeques for summer recreation. They are not supposed to be used as residences, but in practice many do use them in this way in summer time for short periods." Posted March 17, 2005

Plots of Paradise

"Across Canada, a community gardening boom is seeing urban dwellers turning empty lots and rooftops into patches of green. Today, Canada is one of the most highly urbanized countries in the world, with almost 80 percent of its population living in urban areas. Backyards are shrinking, and a yearning for a patch of green among city dwellers has helped to fuel a community gardening boom across the country in recent years." Posted December 29, 2004

The Planner in the Garden: A Historical View into the Relationship between Planning and Community Gardens

"A historical review of community garden programs in the United States since the 1890s reveals an ambivalent relationship between community gardens and the planning profession. On one hand, garden programs are praised and supported as local action to serve environmental, social, and individual objectives. On the other hand, because they are perceived as opportunistic and temporary, community gardens are largely ignored in long-range planning. (Journal of Planning History, May 2004) Subcription required for full text." Posted July 6, 2004

Intercultural Garden Projects in Germany

"In Berlin, Munich, Leipzig, Gottingen and Dessau, the initiators were faced with different starting conditions.... And there are passages; passages between origin and host country, between past and present. Here migrants can participate, make use of the knowledge they bring along, get to know new entities, ideas, mechanisms." Posted July 1, 2004

Edmonton, Alberta, Community Gardens

"Currently there are 29 active community garden organizations. One site has 25 individual sites bringing the total to about 54, and there areĘanother 4-6 community gardensĘin the planning stages. In 2000, a survey indicated there were over 800 families gardening." Posted July 1, 2004

A Pattern Language For Community Gardens

"Community gardens are a powerful phenomenon in America today. They represent one way for citizens to satisfy, of their own accord, the need for meaningful community. Based on my experiences visiting seven gardens and talking to dozens of gardeners, I would testify to the success of these gardens in fulfilling these needs." Posted April 7 2004

L.A. Should Cultivate This Rare Urban Seed

"In fact, the garden is an inspirational story - about urban environmentalism, livable cities and the creation of community. Under the auspices of the Los Angeles Food Bank, a group of mostly Latino immigrants, with annual incomes of less than $20,000, built what is now one of the most impressive community gardens in the nation." Posted March 28 2004

ACGA Conference: "Gardens of Diversity, Growing Across Cultures" Friday October 1 - Sunday October 3, 2004 Toronto, Ontario

American Community Gardening Association (ACGA) - Themes: Community Development, Conservation and Restoration, Diversity, Entrepreneurial projects, Food Security, Horticulture, Innovations, International activities, Politics and Public Policy, Professional and Organizational Development, Research, Special Needs, Youth, Children, School Gardens. Posted January 28, 2004

The Economic Rationale Behind Community Garden Bylaws

"A single owner would not be able to access land as cheaply as a CGO may access land. CGO's are often able to extract low cost leases from the municipalities that control the land, due to the fact that they are not-for-profit (which may explain the selling rule) and because they are composed of many voters." Posted January 18, 2004

Community Garden Bulletins
Updated October 26, 2003
What's the latest news.

Community Gardening In The City Of Ottawa

"There are 19 community gardens currently in the City of Ottawa, with approximately 1,080 gardeners. Fourteen of the 19 community gardens are currently on land owned by the City of Ottawa; two are on church property, two are on private land, and one is on property owned by the University of Ottawa. The Gloucester Allotment Garden Association has two locations, one of these is on NCC land leased by the City and the other is on City property." Posted September 14, 2001

The Garden City Handbook

PDF download. "Over the past two years, Greater Victoria has lost two of its precious community gardens to development. The Handbook provides a description of the current context and circumstances of community gardens across the region. ... It offers a range of alternatives for ensuring that community gardens are protected and provides community groups with guidance for starting gardens and ensuring that they thrive over the long term." Posted August 20, 2003

Seeds of Success

PDF download. "Cities across Canada and the United States offer models for creating and maintaining community gardens. Seeds of Success reveals the range and breadth of possibilities for integrating community gardens into the fabric of communities and protecting these gardens from development. ... Within smaller cities, including Inuvik, Waterloo and Bloomington, local governments and nonprofit groups are adapting community gardens to the specific needs of their citizens." Posted August 20, 2003

Seeds Of Our City : Case Studies From Eight Diverse Community Gardens

"We were interested in learning how much food can be grown in the typical community garden plot, and what kind of impact it has on the food security of the people involved. Essential to this study was the involvement of a core of dedicated gardeners who settled in Canada from many different countries: China, Ghana, Jamaica, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam." Posted September 14, 2003

The Garden Project

"The Garden Project, a nine-year-old gardening and job-training program, has provided free food to soup kitchens and residents of the Bay Area's poorest communities for years. Based at the San Francisco County Jail, the program trains 15 ex-prisoners each year to grow organic vegetables and helps them make the transition into a legal working life. " Posted April 1, 2003

Botswana Civic Leaders Visit Toronto Community Gardens

Solomon Boye, originally trained in his native Ghana, takes over. Gardens are wonderful for young people who are feeling lost and angry, he says. "We tell them that nature's laws are relentless; if you don't seed, you won't harvest, if you don't care for the plants, they will die. It is not adults who are demanding obedience. It is nature demanding cooperation." Posted December 27, 2002

< FONT SIZE=4>Urban Community Gardens Fight To Save Their Space

"New York City's community gardeners have been waiting anxiously for more than two years to learn if the green spaces they love will escape the bulldozer. In 2000, New York's Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, filed a lawsuit that froze construction of 2,922 apartments scheduled to be built on current community garden sites." Posted December 25, 2002

A Deeper Ecology: Community Gardens in the Urban Environment

"In their article, Kameshwari Pothukuchi and Jerome L. Kaufman point out that it is the food system that is missing "from the writing of planning scholars, from the plans prepared by planning practitioners, and from the classrooms in which planning students are taught". Discounting the food system as part of a community development plan, which helps to strengthen the sense of place and belonging and aids in improving the overall environmental quality of an area, is an opportunity lost." Posted September 30, 2002

"Return of Lenin" (to a Swedish allotment garden) - a short film

"In 1917 Lenin passed through Stockholm on his way to the Russian Revolution. Anna Lindhagen invited Lenin to the allotment gardens of "Barnangen" to show all its benefits. Lenin was totally unresponsive to this, - to poke in the soil was to prepare the ground for political laziness in the class struggle. The workers shouldn't be occupied, with gardening, they should rather devote themselves to the proletarian revolution. - " Posted June 17, 2002

Proposed Community Garden Legislation in New York

"After more than a month of behind the scenes negotiation, members of the new NYC Council will file legislation that, if passed, can protect community gardens from development. The legislation being proposed will look different from the law that was introduced in the last Council. It now focuses on a stipulation that would turn the GreenThumb program into an independent public/ private partnership to act as a land trust for the preserved gardens."
Posted June 3, 2002

Re-Vision Urban Farm

"Re-Vision Urban Farm is a project of Re-Vision House, a shelter for homeless pregnant and parenting women and their children. We are a shelter-based, community supported urban farm growing organic produce and fish on reclaimed land which was once vacant lots." Posted May 23, 2002

Chinese, Japanese, German, Swedish, English Allotment Garden Reports

"In Japan allotment and community gardening have been paid striking attention to during the last two decades. For example, the number of allotment sites has increased and allotment gardens were given a legal basis. After World War II the primary objective of allotment gardens was to obtain food. This changed to recreation and to improvement of urban environments later on." Posted May 2, 2001

Community Gardens As An Urban Planning Issue

"Because of their social benefits, it is appropriate for planners to have a role in the implementation of community gardens. A relatively passive approach would be that of facilitator, whereby the project is initiated within the local community. In this case, the planner would assist community members to make sure their projects are approved by municipal councils. A more active approach could involve the planner initiating the project. The possible means for implementation could be through zoning changes, or by negotiating with developers for the provision of community gardens." Posted December 12, 2001

The German Allotment Gardens - a Model For Poverty Alleviation and Food Security in Southern African Cities?

"Conditions of hunger and poverty were widespread in Germany and other European countries nearly 200 years ago when the first "gardens for the poor" emerged. Rapid industrialisation, accompanied by urbanisation and migration, forced large numbers of people into dismal living conditions. Urban gardens were one official response. " Posted October 28, 2001

Denmark's New Law About Community Gardens

"The status of the gardens will be radically changed as of November l, 2001: Previously the gardens had "temporary" status; after November 1 they will become "permanent" gardens - they will now be secure in the future." Posted September 21, 2001

Alice's Colony Garden in Holbaek, Denmark

"In my case I have ended up with a true jewel. The house is like a very tiny cottage, has a bedroom, dining room with table and chairs, a weeny kitchen with gas cooking-plates, and a sink." Posted September 21, 2001

Cultivating Community Knowledge: Growing Food, Flower & Ethnobotanical Gardens with Street Children in Brazil.

"Creating community gardens costs very little money for the positive results it achieves for the people involved. Given the dangerous effects of pesticide residues on children's physical and intellectual development, an organically grown community garden provides inexpensive, vitamin rich food to the earth's most vulnerable citizens, the children." Posted August 22, 2001

A Survey of Community Gardens in Upstate New York: Implications for Health Promotion and Community Development

"Community gardens involve the main characteristics that have been described as important for health promotion in minority communities; these are social support, an emphasis on informal networks, and community organizing through 'multiple change tactics'". Posted March 1, 2001

A Brisbane Community Garden, Australia

Gardening In The Street: Sociality, Production and Consumption in Northey Street City Farm. "From a sociological viewpoint, the notion and practice of urban agriculture challenges the traditional urban-rural dichotomy, that is, the geographical differentiation of labour between food producers in rural areas, and non-food producers in urban areas. This blurring of rural-urban boundaries has postmodernist connotations." (thesis 23,000 words) Posted February 10, 2001

Troy Community Gardens Journal Collection

"What the deer see here is a confusing fence of strange vertical branches and unexplainable straight lines of twine. And inside, where a great variety of food is growing, the hanging shirts of the children, parents, and grandparents who work in the plot during the day are filled with the breath of the nightly breezes." Posted August, 2000

The Fruit Tree Project

"The Fruit Tree Project connects people who have fruit trees, people who can help harvest fruit, and community groups that use fruit in their programs. ... Each year thousands of pounds of apples, pears, plums and cherries fall to the ground and rot in City of Vancouver backyards. ... In 1999, the first year of the project, volunteers harvested and distributed 2000 pounds of fruit from local backyards. Most of the fruit was given to the Vancouver Food Bank and Community Kitchens." Posted August 15, 2000

International Headquarters - Allotment and Leisure Garden Societies - Luxembourg

"Office International du Coin de Terre et des Jardins Familiaux a.s.b.l." has more than 3,000,000 affiliated leisure gardeners in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, and Switzerland. Updated August 3, 2003

In the United Kingdom, The National Society of Allotment And Leisure Gardeners Ltd. (NSALG) Serves Gardeners

The NSALG is the representative body for Allotments in the UK. With over 80,000 members and 1600 affiliated societies it is the largest and most respected organisation of its type in the country. Allotments are being built on every day in every part of the country. There has been a fall in allotment provision of over 40% in the last two decades. Posted March 20, 2000

Update...New York Community Gardens Threatened With Destruction

New York gardeners are battling to preseve their community gardens as City Hall attempts to auction off city owned lots, on which many gardens rest. Various sources. "...By 3:15 a.m., the police began towing away cars on the street, while the protesters gathered around a fire. By 7 a.m., the crowd of protesters had grown to 150. They chanted: 'New York City has got to breathe. More gardens, more peace.' " Updated May 1, 2002

Lettuce Link

"Lettuce Link began in 1988 in an effort to improve the nutritional opportunities of low-income people. The program aimed to address hunger in Seattle through garden development in low income communities, basic garden education, seed and plant distribution at food banks, and coordination of produce donations from the Seattle P-Patch Program." Posted December 20, 1999

Agriculture Urbaine, Rapports Sociaux Et Citoyenneté: le cas du jardinage biologique communautaire au Québec et au Mexique

"This paper contains an analytical description of four community garden initiatives from the areas studied. Two of the gardens are aimed mainly at providing food security while the other two were created to promote local social development." In French (25,000 words) Posted October 8, 1999

"Garden City" Documentary

"Canosa's first documentary takes a look at the history of New York City's community gardens and the controversy that ensued after the city's authorities put up many of them for sale to real estate brokers. The film gives expression to the antagonist values that community groups and speculators attach to those "green enclaves". Posted September 20, 1999

Anacostia's 'Urban Oasis' - Community Farm Thrives On Help of Neighborhood And Corporate Volunteers

"This is a community garden with a goal: providing vegetables, herbs and flowers for people who live in Anacostia (Washington DC) which lost its last supermarket in October, a Safeway near St. Elizabeths. For the many neighborhood residents who do not own cars, it's a two- or three-mile bus or taxi ride to the nearest full-service market unless they go to small corner stores instead. " Posted July 14, 1999

Urbanites Enjoy Life 'Down on the Farm' - in San Francisco

"More likely to be seen are farms like the garden lovingly tended by Eva Moen, proprietor of Wheat Grass Farm and Depot on 15th Street. Her 75- by 45-foot back yard is a burst of primary colors, a bright red patio jammed with white shelves of sprouting green wheat. Moen, 59, takes care of the planting, watering and marketing of 350 flats a week of the green sprouts." Posted June 8, 1999

Yukon Territory Community Garden - Year One

"The young people involved in the Renewable Resources summer program did some harvesting ... a bunch of 18 year olds digging up the spuds with such glee you'd think they were gold nuggets ... seems the kids had never done anything like that before and thought it was great fun!" Posted October 27, 1998

Casitas: Gardens Of Reclamation

"Drawing on Caribbean agricultural and architectural traditions, Puerto Rican community gardeners in New York not only cultivate vegetables, fruit, and medicinal as well as culinary herbs, but also construct one- and two-room wood frame structures known as casitas or little houses." Photographs by Ejlat Feuer, text by Daniel Winterbottom showing at El Museo del Barrio in New York City. Updated November 8, 1998

Jane Weissman and her Vision for New York's Community Gardens

Long-time director of GreenThumb, Jane Weissman, has been given a People's Hall of Fame award "for tireless work promoting New York's community gardens and casitas." Posted October 24, 1998

City Farmers - the film

Directed and produced by Meryl Joseph, City Farmers is "a journey of hope down New York City's meanest streets where inner-city residents have transformed derelict, abandoned lots into oases of vegetables and flowers." Posted October 20, 1998

WWOOFing: "Willing Workers on Organic Farms" gives city people a chance to experience farming

Over 20 countries around the world have WWOOFing programs. In 1997 WWOOF Canada had 280 hosts across the country, 130 of them in BC. 1000 volunteers worked hard on organic farms, gardens and homesteads in exchange for 3 wholesome meals and accommodation. Updated October 11, 1998

Community Gardening in Greater Madison, Wisconsin

"In the summer of 1997, twenty-four community gardens were in operation in the Greater Madison Area. These sites contain approximately 1600 individual plots." (9,500 words) Posted October 1, 1998

"Rooted in Community" Community Gardens in New York City

In a 6000 word report to the New York State Senate entitled "Rooted in Community", Carole Nemore, writing on behalf of State Senator John Sampson, urged preservation of community gardens in New York City. The report was an outcome of a research effort during which questionaires were sent to most of the City's GreenThumb gardens. Posted April 14, 1998

Photographs of Community Gardening in New York

Operation Green Thumb celebrates the beauty and joy of New York's in an exhibition of 43 photographs. Published in conjunction with the show is a wonderful booklet titled Tales From The Field II, Stories By GreenThumb Gardeners

Montreal Community Gardens

Pierre Bourque, community garden champion and a 30 year veteran of Montreal's civil service, was recently elected Mayor of Montreal.

Community Gardening in Major Canadian Cities: Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver Compared

Sean Cosgrove shares with us his paper (9000 words) prepared for Urban Agriculture Policy In Southern Africa, an International Conference held in Pretoria, South Africa, March 3-5, 1998 Updated July 3, 1998

A Sustainable Future For Boston's Community Gardens
Garden Futures' publication, Rooted in Our Neighborhoods, is a detailed report which seeks long-term solutions for sustaining community gardening in Boston, a city with over 120 community gardens.

Formula for Determining the Value of Crops Produced in Community Gardens

This formula was developed by the USDA and the National Gardening Association in 1981 at which time it very closely approximated values determined by weighing each harvest and pricing the harvested crops at local markets over an entire season. Posted May 24, 1998

Neighbourgardens

"Neighbourgardens was established in Vancouver to connect land-owners who have garden space they do not use, with land-less gardeners who would like the use of a garden, primarily to grow fresh vegetables in." Updated January 11, 2002

Hope Springs Eternal: The 1984 American Community Gardening Conference

For many years, City Farmer was the only Canadian organization attending this important Urban Agriculture event. Posted April 27, 1999

Community Gardens: A Tool for Community Building

A history of CGs, a survey of Waterloo CGs and advice for planners can all be found in Dena Warman's essay. "Gardens should not be structured in a systematic manner. They should be the collective expression of the gardeners' visions for the garden and the visions of community as a whole. Planners and Municipalities must learn to trust the garden users with the land and the gardening activities." (23,000 words) Posted February 20, 2000

Report on Community and Allotment Gardening in the Greater Vancouver Region, April, 1997

Norm Connolly, working closely with City Farmer, has produced a timely overview of the mushrooming development of Vancouver community gardens.

Urban Agriculture in Philadelphia

The hundreds of garbage strewn vacant lots have stimulated citizens to create what has been called "the largest comprehensive urban greening program in North America."

Germans Use Their Green Thumbs To Cultivate The Cities
In the mid-19th century, Mr. Hurt says, "city fathers asked themselves how they could control the revolutionary tendencies of workers." Small garden plots were the answer, not only in Berlin but also Paris, Brussels, and Vienna. (From The Christian Science Monitor)

Search Our Site

Return to Contents' Page