[Community_garden] Community gardening benefits

[Don Boekelheide]

Hi, all,

This is an important thread, I think. 

As Adam rightly points out, our lists of community
garden benefits depend to some extent on who will be
reading them - certainly, it makes sense to ask 
'what's in it for my negotiating partner'.

All the same, it makes sense to me to hash out our
lists, and our visions and mission statements, from
time to time. Strangely, business has largely
expropriated this process of late, in service of
'success' or 'greater profits'. I stray...

I remember how affirming it was ages ago to stumble
across the IFOAM definition of 'sustainable
agriculture', back in a grad seminar at ag school. I
think I still remember it: Ecologically sound,
economically viable, socially/culturally/politically
just, and humane. It gave me, and still gives me, a
sense of solidarity and common cause with sisters and
brothers seeking a to make this world a better, fairer
and greener place.

No doubt the big picture is important, and I
appreciate what Keith and Adam suggest - their leads
are valuable and thought-provoking.

That said, let me put in two bits on behalf of plain
ol' gardening, as opposed to 'greening' or 'civic
ecology'. 

Not that either of these broadly defined areas aren't
of great value - they are, absolutely! And certainly
the Witmore Study appears to be uncovering some very
interesting and plausible correlations between
community gardens and dropping neighborhood crime
rates.

But I feel these are secondary considerations in
community gardening. For me, community gardening at
its roots is about something simpler, deeper, and more
direct than any derivative effects it might have.

Community gardens provide a place for everyone to
garden, a place for all to get outside, dig in the
soil, and grow stuff. That dirt-under-the-fingernails
fundamental transcends the vast superstructure of
appealing visions and grant-worthy outcomes that the
community garden movement supports.

Does this change the axiom that 'in community
gardening, community comes first'? Not at all.
However, I've observed that the most enduring and
satisfying garden-inspired changes in communities come
from rough hewn progress made from the grassroots up,
by gardeners growing things and working together
side-by-side.

So, by all means, do urban ecology! Be a community
greener! Come up with a creative new sobriquet to name
what it is we do, to better inform  ourselves, funders
and foundations that community gardening is not
"simply" community gardening, but countless other
valuable things as well.

At the same time, let's never forget the simple
gardens at the heart of what we do.

Don Boekelheide
Charlotte, NC