Respuesta :
Many cities and towns in the past few decades have established community gardens--places the city council sets aside for the community to rent a garden space and plant harvest. The question, though, is whether they have any initial impact on the community or are they just completely useless in smaller towns compared to cities. To evaluate this, its important to look at whether people actually use them for theirs and the communities benefit, how much time and how much budget is needed to set these gardens, and what it takes to maintain these gardens in these smaller towns.
When you look at the big picture, community gardens in most large cities are very beneficial and are a great for the environment also. However, as someone who visits the community garden in my small town every now and then, I ensure you these gardens are not very convenient, and are more in the way than anything. Usually small town gardens need to be built from scratch. That means towns must buy and haul in all the materials for the garden beds. If these are raised beds, they must buy bricks and / or lumber. Sometimes organizers of community gardens will get donations whether that be money or material, but they still have to have it moved on site. Also, many community gardens require a substantial amount of dirt and an irrigation system. It takes a lot of effort for these workers to make a garden from zilch. The costs can far outweigh the benefits in small communities. Larger cities can make this work seeming as they have more options for materials and more people using the completed garden.
The next important thing to look at is how the community keeps up the garden. Often community gardens require it’s renters to spend a certain amount of time weeding and watering the garden. While this might sound good in theory, my experience is that people rarely follow through. The people do great maintaining these gardens in the spring during planting time, but then they get busy, lazy or just forget about it so they disregard this commitment. If a city is large enough to have someone on site. Maintenance is not as big of a deal. However, in my small community garden, no one is ever around. In fact, my garden is overrun by growing weeds and inefficient care taking. This makes our town’s community garden a complete joke.
I HOPE THIS HELPS
When you look at the big picture, community gardens in most large cities are very beneficial and are a great for the environment also. However, as someone who visits the community garden in my small town every now and then, I ensure you these gardens are not very convenient, and are more in the way than anything. Usually small town gardens need to be built from scratch. That means towns must buy and haul in all the materials for the garden beds. If these are raised beds, they must buy bricks and / or lumber. Sometimes organizers of community gardens will get donations whether that be money or material, but they still have to have it moved on site. Also, many community gardens require a substantial amount of dirt and an irrigation system. It takes a lot of effort for these workers to make a garden from zilch. The costs can far outweigh the benefits in small communities. Larger cities can make this work seeming as they have more options for materials and more people using the completed garden.
The next important thing to look at is how the community keeps up the garden. Often community gardens require it’s renters to spend a certain amount of time weeding and watering the garden. While this might sound good in theory, my experience is that people rarely follow through. The people do great maintaining these gardens in the spring during planting time, but then they get busy, lazy or just forget about it so they disregard this commitment. If a city is large enough to have someone on site. Maintenance is not as big of a deal. However, in my small community garden, no one is ever around. In fact, my garden is overrun by growing weeds and inefficient care taking. This makes our town’s community garden a complete joke.
I HOPE THIS HELPS