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Community gardening

Description and Benefits

Community gardens are accessible to a range of community members, usually located on public land or at acommunity service organisation. Their form is usually designed around the community’s desires and needs, butcan take the form of a series of plots which are then used by a family or other group.

Urban community gardens may improve dietary intake and improved access to fruit and vegetables (Joan Twiss etal., September 2003). Garden-based learning programs, an alternative approach to traditional nutrition education,are becoming increasingly popular. There is yet little research that assesses the outcomes of these school gardenprograms (Ozer, 2006) but emerging evidence from a few small studies suggests that they:

improve young children’s willingness to try new vegetables (Morris, 2001)increase the level of students’ nutritional knowledge (Viola, 2006)increase consumption of fruits and vegetables in young people (McAleese, 2007; Lautenschlager and Smith,2007).

Addressing social inequalities in physical activity will require improving access to and the number of recreationalfacilities in disadvantaged areas, implementing programs aimed at enhancing social networks supportive ofphysical activity, and providing education and skill development for individuals (Kavanagh et al., 2005, Giles-Cortiand Donovan, 2003). Community gardens are one mechanism to meet these objectives. Action to enhancesupport networks for physical activity are needed in identified areas of disadvantage in Victoria, particularlyNeighbourhood and Community Renewal Sites (Wood et al., 2003). Community-based social support interventionsthat recruit residents into voluntary groups (e.g. walking groups, gardening groups) are effective in increasingphysical activity (Kahn et al., 2002).

When creating a community garden there are two approached that can be taken, bottom up or top down.The bottom up approach consists of a small group of people joining together, planning the garden, approachinglocal council or other authority, finding land and then cultivating it (Grayson and Campbell, 2002; Pretorius, 2008).

The top-down approach consists of professional individuals, such as, community workers and local governmenthaving the idea of and becoming interested in community gardens. From a professional point of view thecommunity gardens may be to build or improve a sense of community or to improve the nutrition of the people theywork with. A top-down approach may sometimes be easier that a bottom-up approach as existing contacts withgovernment, schools, churches or other organisations may assist in the process of obtaining land and funding. Toassist a top-down approach in working the professional individuals may want to help raise funding for the projectand to employ a gardening co-ordinator. With a top-down approach, being someone else’s idea it has to betargeted to the group they believe will use the garden. This may or may not always be successful and may takesome time in doing. Patience and persistence will be required to build support for the garden within the community (Grayson and Campbell, 2002).

Size and distribution of the problem

General data about physical activity (including available data for Gippsland) can be found athttp://www.dhs.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/000 4/275845/PhysicalActivity.pdf and data about health eating(including available data for Gippsland) can be found athttp://www.dhs.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/276296/HealthyEating.pdf

Leadership

A range of agencies could lead the development of a community garden.

Department of HealthLast updated: 8 July 2010

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Suggested Partners

Council for provision of a coordinator, access to land, provision of public liability insurance, financialsupport, and support with garden design and development.Other land owners/managers to gain access to land.Community groups for participation and value adding (eg. art groups)

Local businesses (eg. nurseries)

Resources for Implementation

Australian City Farms and Community Gardens Network www.communitygardens.org.au and in particular theirstarting a community garden guide by (Grayson and Campbell) athttp://www.communitygarden.org.au/start/making.html .

Community Garden Start-Up Guide, (GardenWorks, 2007)Minneapolis, USAhttp://www.gardenworksmn.org/Re sources/startupguide.pdf

(Australian Community Foods) http://www.communityfoods.org.au/

(Botanic Gardens Trust) http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/education/community_greening

available at: http://www.burlingtongardens.org/Comm unity_%20Garden_CaseStudies.pdf

Options for Local Government to consider in planning for physical activity and healthy eating environments(Pretorius, 2008) can be found at http://www.health.qld.gov.au/ph/documents/hpu/lga_physical_eating.pdf

(Kingsley and Townsend) (2006) ''Dig in to social capital: Community gardens as mechanisms for growing urbansocial connectedness', Urban Policy and Research., vol. 24, no. 4, p. 525.

(Bellows. AC et al., 2008) Health benefits of urban agriculture Community Food Security Coalition.Available from: http://www.foodsecurity.org/pubs.html#healthurbanag .

(North Carolina State University, 2007) Resource materialsAvailable at: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/gar den/CommunityGarden/tools.html

Evaluation Tools

Methods for measurement of impacts such as levels of physical activity are described athttp://www.dhs.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/275861/PhysicalActivity.pdf and methods for measuringlevels of consumption of fruit and vegetables are described athttp://www.dhs.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/276532/HealthyEating.pdf

(North Carolina State University, 2007) community gardens resource materials

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/garden/CommunityGarden/tools.html and specificallyhttp://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/garden/CommunityGarden/Healthy%20Lifestyle%20Education.doc . Thisquestionnaire is designed to collect data on intervention participants at multiple points in time – but for theintervention group only. It is worth considering whether you can also collect data from a control group.

Community Gardens also bring other social benefits and you may wish to measure some indicators of communitystrength depending on your objectives.

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Page 4 Department of Health

Wood, B., Swinburn, B. & Burns, C. (2003) Food security and eating well for all in Victoria. Asia Pac J Clin Nutr, 12Suppl , S17.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&dopt=Citation&list_uids=15023609