Community garden design and construction
Article series 03
One of the most interesting parts of the garden creation process is the landscape design process.
A community garden is a complex design task, it has many functions, many garden elements to design, attention to operation and safety, and it must also be aesthetically pleasing. Be sure to design with a professional, a landscape architect who has seen a community garden, or better still, has been part of one. It is also an interesting challenge for landscape architects to build a community garden, and it is no coincidence that many graduate students choose to design a community garden as part of their landscape architecture degree. There are so many great, creative, innovative garden designs and garden ideas to be seen, but keep your creativity in check and focus on usability and developability when designing. A community garden is designed for decades, and in the second or third season the community garden goes beyond the design concept and starts its own development. This is what the plants and the garden members want. A community garden is part organism, part organization, only the participants can change, but the garden is permanent, there is a season every year, in many ways independent of the gardeners.
It is really the job of the landscape architect to lay the foundations of the garden in a good, functional way, and then the garden can stand on its own. In a few years it will grow far beyond the concept of the designer.
The field survey, determining the location of the garden
The municipality’s property management department usually provides a list of possible sites in the district where a community garden could be established. Visit the sites on the list and consider the following points.
The size of the site.
The community garden should be about 1,000 square metres, which should accommodate about 25-28 beds and the common cultivation areas, walkways, community space, etc. The 25-28 beds are important because this is about the number of people that can be used to build a community. Too large an area is not worth it because the garden needs to be maintained, if it is too large it makes it difficult to operate. And too small an area can accommodate too few beds, and the garden will cost too much in terms of species.
Sun exposure.
It’s not worth starting a garden on a narrow plot of land squeezed between buildings or in an area overgrown with trees, because your plants won’t grow. 10 to 12 hours of sunlight a day is a must. It is good if there are trees in the future community garden, because then the community space can be planted around them, with shady, quiet areas, but the majority of the area should be undisturbed by sunlight.
Water network.
The garden should be irrigated, usually with tap water or a borehole. Water charges are paid by the gardeners, but in many cases they are paid by the municipality. Each district irrigates a very large area, in this community gardens are not really a major item. You also have to build a water network with multiple outlets within the garden, this also requires planning. A garden water network is basic equipment, without it there is no functioning garden. Rainwater harvesting is always an issue, but experience shows that this is almost never enough, and in addition water tanks are very expensive.
Soil, growing environment
Urban land is unsuitable for growing crops. It is polluted, used up, not worth experimenting with. In Budapest, only brought-in soil is used in raised beds in community gardens. In the case of imported soil, it is also worth checking in advance what is being delivered, as we have often had stony, weed-contaminated soil, which has caused a lot of problems, until we managed to turn it into a good quality growing environment. Over a season in raised beds, the soil is quite overused, so nutrient replenishment is very important. In addition, raised beds have many advantages: you have to bend less to cultivate, you can control the quality and nutrient content of the soil, you need less water, and pests have less access to your plants. Each autumn, when the garden is put into winter rest, garden compost is added to the raised beds and it is worth adding some mature cattle manure, so that you have a nutrient-rich, good quality growing environment again for the next season.
Population density.
Community gardens should be created mainly in residential areas, in densely built-up urban areas, where there is a high density of inhabitants and a lack of small gardens. Many pensioners live in housing estates and there are many families with young children, who tend to be the most active members of community gardens. In garden cities it is not worth starting a community garden, as everyone has their own garden. It is a basic experience that a community garden should only be started as a neighbourhood community. The further away garden members come from, the faster they leave the garden. People who live nearby are the most active garden members, those who have to travel to the garden quickly get bored and drop out.
Community garden landscape architectural design, design process
An urban garden has to perform many functions, so careful and professional planning is essential. The garden is not just a space for urban agriculture and crop production: it also has a community and educational function, it must fit into the urban environment, it must be part of the life of the neighbourhood and, last but not least, it must be aesthetically pleasing. There is, of course, community planning; by no means should prospective users be left out of the planning process, but an educated professional approach to planning is essential to the long-term success of the garden. So the foundations on which the community will build a working garden must be well laid. A community garden is not completed in the first season. It is then that the basic functions are built – beds, fencing, watersystem, walkways – and then in the following seasons the gardeners themselves develop it further, making it richer, more comfortable and, above all, more lush and colourful.
Elements of the design
Fencing, raised beds, water system irrigation, composters, communal areas (herb garden, flower beds, fruit trees), walkways, community space location and features, sandpit for children, garden furniture, sun shade, fire pit, lockable tool storage and outside garden areas.
Concept plans.
The best method so far has been the joint course weeks with the Department of Landscape Architecture at Corvinus University, where students of landscape architecture have created concept plans for a specific site. In the process, they met with future gardeners and representatives of the municipality, and experienced the design of a community garden as a real-life task. This is how the Békási garden, the Szélrózsa community garden in Szentendre, and one of the most beautiful garden designs, which was not realized afterwards, the Amfikert design. The students’ concept designs are then used to put together a final design and a construction plan. Experience has shown that it is better not to leave the creation of the final plan to the students, as they have neither the time nor the professional skills to do it. Design work cannot be avoided and is worth paying for.
History of the Amphitheatre Garden- Amfi Garden
Two thousand years ago, Budapest was part of the Roman Empire, a border city along the Limes, on the banks of the Danube. It was called Aquincum and interestingly enough had two amphitheatres, one for the military town and a smaller one for the civil town. The ruins of these two amphitheatres still stand today, in the third district of Budapest. In the concept design, the students used the architectural form of the amphitheatre as a model for the community garden, and a very beautiful and original design was created. The only problem was that we never managed to realise it, and I still miss it.
Concept plans for the Békási Garden
Concept plans for the Böszi Garden
Construction
It is best if the municipality has its own contractor and has them build the garden. They can plan the garden construction into the annual work schedule, they have the experts, we don’t have to deal with the accounting, it’s the best solution from all points of view. The construction of the community garden takes 2-3 months, usually starts after the frosts have passed and, if we are lucky, it is ready for the gardeners to take over at the beginning of the growing season. The contractors are expected to build the foundation garden, while the landscaping and starting of the garden is done by the gardeners.
Construction of thew Böszi garden
Garden building day
When the contractors leave the site, we organise a construction day on a specific day in advance. This is when we put the finishing touches to the garden, discuss the amount of garden furniture, the location of the communal space, set up the composting bins and install the water system.
Planting day
Right after the construction day, the next community event is the planting day, when the first seeds and seedlings are planted. As part of the garden establishment, garden members are given gardening training and are asked to make a bedding plan of what and where they will plant in their beds. By this time, everyone’s home windows are full of seedlings, and established communities organise to buy seedlings from growers together. There are many companies on the internet with a very wide range of seedlings. This method is good because, above a certain quantity, the contractor brings the selected seedlings to your home, you don’t have to bother with transport and you can buy really good quality, often special plants.
Planting Day is a big event every season, with gardeners preparing their own bed planting plans well in advance, and much of the classroom training is about this beforehand. We also have the seedlings, and we start planting in the common areas, especially the herb garden, but along the fences we plant flowers and runners just to make the garden look better. Perennials should not be planted in the first season, it’s better to get the garden settled and familiar with it first, and then berries and fruit trees can be planted in the second season. Be careful when planting trees, because after a few years they can grow very large and overshadow beds. Any major planting should be discussed by the community, and there should be a consensus. The herb garden and the flower areas usually have a person in charge who is skilled and willing to take charge, and the community cultivates these areas under his or her guidance.
Furniture building days
The garden is a community space that needs to be organised and it is a special community-building activity for gardeners to make their own garden furniture, usually from pallets. The internet is full of better and better garden pallet ideas, so it’s worth looking for interesting designs and good solutions and putting them into practice. In a community garden, what you definitely need: a big table around which the company can sit, benches, lots of seating. There should be plenty of seating in the garden, it is not pleasant to stand around all the time. A table and benches are not made in a day, it takes weeks if you add that they have to be painted. Once the basic furniture is in place, you’ll have a much more comfortable overall garden, attracting gardeners to spend more and more time there.
Compost bins can also be built from pallets, but often the municipality provides compost frames, which are distributed to the public, so that compost bins are also available for the community garden. Place them away from the community square, preferably in a shady part of the garden. Over time, the composting frames will multiply, there is a very large amount of green waste in the community garden that can and should be composted. Many gardeners bring their green waste from home, so to avoid mistakes, be sure to have composting education before you start recycling. Be aware that compost bins attract mice and, less often, rats. Especially in the winter, when they burrow in the middle of the compost bin where it is warm, you have to be prepared for this and protect the garden against them. It looks bad that if you find mice or rats in the garden, this should be avoided.
Place the sandpit next to the community space, preferably in the shade. Young children are not so fascinated by the world of plants, but they love the sandpit, and parents are happy because the child is occupied with the other little ones, they can play in the sand, there is peace and quiet. It’s funny how plastic sandpit toys tend to multiply at a devouring rate in gardens, I once found a plastic dinosaur lurking in the grass in one garden. Good community gardens tend to have a lot of abandoned toys, after a while they become part of the garden, they get put away in the tool shed in the winter, they turn up again in the spring to the children’s delight.
Build a firepit.
Beyond the plants and nature, one of the most important community-building elements in the garden is the fire. I didn’t realise this until I set up a garden framework where fire pits could not be installed for fire safety reasons. Fire is the oldest invention of humankind, the last 400,000 to 600,000 years have been spent with our ancestors sitting around the fire in the evenings, cooking and talking, it is almost genetically coded. Even in community gardens, cooking together, the garden party, is one of the best community-building activities. A lot of people come, conversations develop spontaneously, it’s actually on these occasions that we get to know each other, it’s free time well spent, everyone loves it. There is also a garden where they have improved the cooking in the garden, they have built a pizza oven, it’s particularly interesting how everyone makes their own pizza. Although alcohol is not usually consumed in the community gardens, there is a spritz, and possibly beer, during the garden parties, more for the atmosphere.
Tool storage.
After a while, garden tools, cans and all sorts of gardening tools start to accumulate in the garden, and it’s a good idea to store them. The tool storage is done during the year, you can make it fun, like in the Zápor garden, where we painted the not so nice tool storage, so it was much more acceptable.
Zápor kert – szerszámtároló festése
What are the most important tools in the community garden?
In community gardens there are individual tools, small gardening shovels, pruning shears, and shared tools. Not every bed needs its own shovel, digging fork, rake, etc. We need 2-3 of these, and we take turns using them. We need hoses, watering cans, and many gardens have mowers. Then over the years you get more and more tools. It’s worth fixing in the garden rule so that if someone uses tools, they always put them back in the bin cleaned.
In the next part, I will write about community building, the year-long process by which gardeners become a community and take control of the garden.
