The last in a series of articles on urban – community gardens, this one is less about plants and growing seasons and more about the organisation of the garden community and the role of garden leaders.

All community gardens need to be managed, garden managers are needed, and in many gardens there is a garden coordination team. An unmanaged garden will not work, everything will be in disarray, the garden and the community itself will decline very quickly. Most communal gardens fall into this mistake, they trust in the ‘power of community’ but fail to consider that if there is no thoughtful management, no planned season, the whole thing will miss the mark and die. Somehow the garden community needs to be understood as a company, an organisation. Many different people, many different skills come together, and they need to be guided in the same direction, organised and coordinated in the day-to-day running of the garden.

Importantly, it is not the garden manager’s job to do everything himself, but rather to create the conditions for the community to do the garden tasks themselves, efficiently, quickly and cheerfully. The garden manager is more of an organiser, more of a coordinator and of course he or she does some of the physical work.

Although the garden is ready, it has had a few successful seasons, but that doesn’t mean it is functional on its own, it needs a person, or perhaps a small group, to think through the season, call the garden meetings, communicate with the local authority, keep track of the garden’s assets, manage the garden’s internal and external communications. The goal is always to have a successful and relaxed season for the garden that year, to achieve success at community and individual level.

The one-third rule

A broad generalisation about all community gardens is that a third of the members are active and participate in all events, another third only attend the main events, and there is a third who are rarely seen, sometimes or not at all involved in the life of the garden. For them, the only thing that matters is their beds, or worse, their beds become deserted and weedy by mid-season, which is a serious problem, and in a garden where all the garden members have the same size bed, neglected beds are very noticeable. In this case, the garden leader should step in and ask the neglected gardener to give back his bed so that a new, more active member can be selected by the community from the waiting list. Fortunately, every garden has a long waiting list, it is easy to bring new members into the garden. The garden by-laws set out how neglectful gardeners can be removed from the garden, partly by written warning, partly by verbal warning and finally, if they do not respond, the community can vote them out of membership. This step is not to be neglected, it is better to have a new, enthusiastic garden member to replace the neglectful gardener.

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There are situations when the garden manager has to take “firm” action. There are cases when a garden member is found to be unfit to exist in a community, his behaviour, his habitus make him unfit for community life. These are the community destroyers. Often they are unable to communicate with other gardeners in the right tone of voice, or without the approval of the community they do something in the garden that is bad for everyone or detracts from the overall image of the garden. In such cases, the garden manager has to step in and either persuade or, as a last resort, vote the person out of the garden. There have been examples of gardeners who have been found to have alcohol problems, and it is not acceptable for a gardener to stagger around the garden with many young children present. There were also examples of the garden partner’s personality making him unfit to participate in the community, causing strife, destroying the community, inadequate personal communication with others, and such a person needs to be urgently removed from the garden.

Communication problems very often come up in e-mail conversations. In addition to the keyboard, some people indulge in far more than they would in face-to-face communication, and this must be stopped immediately, not allowed to escalate, because in the long run it has a devastating effect. Don’t be afraid to put someone out of the garden, do it calmly, without offence, give them the opportunity to retreat with their head held high.

New garden members in the garden

Each garden has a long waiting list so we can select the applicants. It’s worth inviting applicants to the garden, several at once, and telling them what garden membership means. Many people have an unrealistic view of how community gardens work, there is a lot of idealism, it is better to be clear from the start what the tasks, responsibilities and benefits will be for the new garden member. Some people back away from signing up when they learn that the garden involves shared responsibilities, not just a bed to garden in. When choosing a new garden member, pay attention to the integration of the new garden member into the garden community. Introduce the new members at the next garden meeting, put them on the mailing list, give them all the knowledge and good advice they need to integrate easily and quickly into the garden community.

The tasks of a garden manager:

• The most important tasks of a community garden leader include: involving members, delegating tasks and responsibilities, and resolving conflicts.
• A key role is to coordinate, build community, create and maintain stability and cohesion.
• Organises garden meetings and garden events.
• Represents the garden in a defined capacity, liaises with the designated unit of the municipality.
• The garden manager is responsible for enforcing the garden rules and the house rules.
• Coordinate garden communications, external and internal coordination together.
• Overseeing the garden’s membership fees, leases and budget.
• Keeping records of the garden’s financial assets.
• The goal to be achieved by the garden manager is the optimal operation of the garden, achieving long-term sustainability.

Culture of cooperation

One of the most important tasks of the garden manager or garden coordination team is to develop a culture of cooperation. All members should be able to work and associate with others, making decisions together about the future of the garden, participating in the physical maintenance of the garden, and being part of the community. The success of a community garden is the result of the cooperation of its members. Nature will do its work independently.

What makes a good garden manager?

Be a good gardener, but more importantly, be able to communicate with a wide range of people, Often retired teachers and people used to management make the best garden managers. Garden managers need to be able to deal with conflict quickly and effectively. Garden managers must have time to organise and volunteer for the garden.

A good garden leader can run a garden meeting well. Garden meetings are a forum for discussing garden business, and effective and to the point meetings are essential. It is interesting to note that during the Covid epidemic we held online garden meetings and they were not effective. Much better to be in person. Garden meetings should be held a few more times a year: beginning of season garden meetings, end of season garden meetings, and during the year if there is a need.

The garden manager must be able to harmonise different ideas and expectations, and most importantly, to promote community decision-making in all cases. It is not the garden manager who decides on the major issues of the garden, but rather coordinates the community to make important decisions themselves and helps and organises their implementation.

Community garden management should be the responsibility of one person for the first season, because too much participation will only hinder an effective learning process. However, for subsequent seasons, it is better to establish a garden coordination group. One person is likely to have too many tasks to manage the garden, but by dividing the work into different sub-tasks, you will make your job easier.

Keeping the gardens working.

We build community gardens for decades. The only garden I have had that I know of that was built as a temporary garden is the Böszi Garden, which was built on a construction site and will be discontinued when the economic situation allows the planned municipal investment to get underway. The gardeners have taken note of this situation, so they experience each season as a gift and hope that they might have another season. At the same time, my oldest garden, the Első Kis-Pesti Kert, completed its 12th season this year, has become an important part of Kispest’s life and the neighbourhood over the past dozen years, and there seems no reason why anything should prevent it from continuing to thrive for decades to come.

In 2012, I was in New York for the American Community Garden Association conference and we visited several community gardens in New York. Some of them were 40-50 years old. No one remembered who the founders were, none of the people who started urban gardening back then were alive. And yet they still exist perfectly well, with gardening revived season after season. It took the city to accept the benefits of these urban gardens and start actively supporting them. The logic is quite simple, community-maintained urban gardens are infinitely cheaper for the city than park maintenance, but they also have a much higher biological value, are more permanent, are free from vandalism, are an ornament to the neighbourhood, host many events of importance to the district, participate in the environmental education of youth and, most importantly, create active neighbourhood communities. A global city is made up of many of these small communities.

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Once these community gardens are established on municipal land, as a municipal investment, smart municipalities will include the gardens in the district’s so-called green space management plan. This means that the municipality cannot let the garden go, saying that it is ready, it is now cultivated and maintained by the gardeners. Every asset has its amortization period, it deteriorates, it decays, it needs to be replaced. Here, bed frames are the main expense. After having established 9 gardens, I have to say that there is no really good solution for raised bed borders. They are depreciating assets. Most of the time we use wooden bed frames, but no matter how much we protect and treat them, they start to decay and rot after 5-6 years. Standing outdoors in winter and summer, in sunshine and winter frost, they will inevitably break down after a while.

We can build the beds, for example with bricks or concrete blocks, but the cost of building these is unrealistically high, and is usually rejected by planners and local government representatives during construction. The clever municipality will include a depreciation cost for the community garden, from which the gardens can buy the timber needed for renovation and then rebuild the deteriorated beds themselves. This is community work, an unavoidable task.

Community gardens are getting richer every year. It’s almost unbelievable how many varieties of plants can grow in these gardens. From the second to the third season, the flowers will become more and more numerous, the fruit trees more and more numerous. Groups from the schools and kindergartens in the area will get used to the garden, they will have biology classes in the garden, the inhabitants of the area will like the garden because it is beautiful, because it shows a different face every day, because it is interesting and good. One of the best feelings is when strangers from the neighbourhood call me and say, “Nice garden, congratulations. That is success.

In this section, I will try to put the process of implementing the community gardens in chronological order, with a focus on the events and tasks of the first season. Of course, each garden is unique and their implementation is different, but the main milestones are the same. The other important element is that only municipal gardens will be discussed.

December – January

The community garden is a joint project with the municipality, on municipal land and as a municipal investment, we inevitably have to adapt to the way the administration and the organisation works. You have to be able to wait out the bureaucratic process until everything is in its right place. The most important thing is to budget for the creation of the community garden and to allocate capital to it when the municipal budget is drawn up for next year. This requires a budget, often asks for feasibility studies and references. This is done before the end of the year and approved by the municipal assembly. Then a contract can be signed with the municipality, for the establishment of the garden, for the management of the garden, all this takes a lot of time, but this is where the process starts.

Community gardener recruitment. The first public forum, location and date should be announced. Because we are organizing neighborhood communities it is best to recruit prospective garden members from the neighborhood, it is worth posting the event in the doorways of neighboring houses. An inspiring presentation should be prepared for the community forum, so that people can see what to expect, what will happen, and how they can get involved in the garden’s creation. We’ll start registering people from the first session and set up a closed mailing list where we can keep in touch. Don’t be surprised if not all the beds are sold out the first time, by the time the garden is ready there will be a long waiting list.

February- Garden meetings, training, launch of the design process

We usually hold two-weekly garden meetings and training sessions, during which we come up with a name for the garden, possibly an emblem, discuss garden contracts, garden rules, vote on the bed rent, and elect a garden treasurer. Meanwhile, let’s start the garden design with concept plans. Invite landscape architects, or perhaps students in a university course week, to prepare concept plans. It makes sense to work with relatively short deadlines, as we want to open the garden in early summer. In the meantime, gardening education will be launched. The gardening course will be four classroom sessions, and after the garden is complete, the learning will continue outdoors.

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March

By this time, the design concept for the garden has been developed and the landscape architect is working on the final design. It is worth inviting him to a garden meeting where he/she will explain how the garden will look, introduce the plans, and give comments. In the meantime, gardener education is being provided along the lines of the theme.

April

The garden design is finished, the contractor starts building the garden. It’s worth inviting the contractor to a garden meeting to explain the main steps of the garden construction and to discuss who can participate in what work. The aim is that the community that is being formed should also take part in the construction and running of the garden, so that they develop a stronger, deeper bond with the garden. The tasks of maintaining the garden will be talked through, and everyone will have to take a part. We start planning community events for the season. In the meantime, gardening and compost education is going on. Composting is a separate science, so it’s worth setting up a separate training session.

The construction of the garden should be carried out and supervised by the municipality. It is too big a task to be undertaken without competence. The physical construction of a garden is a profession, if you don’t know how to do it, don’t do it, you can lose big.

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May

By May, the garden is usually ready, beds are assigned at the garden meeting, garden contracts are signed by all gardeners, garden keys are handed out and the first season’s “bed rental fee” is paid to the garden treasurer. Each garden has expenses, seeds to be bought, common garden tools, paints, watering cans and printing costs, which are funded from the common treasury. All expenses are discussed at the garden meeting and approved by the community.) Each gardener is given a key to the garden, everyone goes to the garden when they feel like it or have time. Many like to garden early in the morning, others after work. The gardens are basically locked, there have been occasions when an unwitting visitor has accidentally caused damage, so the garden gate is usually locked even when there are gardeners inside, but interested visitors are let in and shown around the garden.

By May, the gardeners’ bed-planting designs will be ready, and the seedlings will be planted at home. We cannot grow enough seedlings to fill the bed at home, so it is worth ordering seedlings from specialised companies. In the meantime, we will also discuss planting the herb garden and flower beds. The aim is to have everything ready for planting day, so that everyone knows what we are going to do and where it will go.

Planting day takes place in May. This is one of the most important events in the garden establishment process. This is when the seedlings are put in the ground, the herb garden is planted and the season starts. Gardening Day is a milestone in the life of the garden, it is when the first growing season really begins. Planting day is usually held on a Saturday or Sunday, so be prepared for it to be at least a 4-6 hour occupation. A botanist will help you get the planting right.

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June

The plants are growing nicely and we are getting ready to build the garden furniture. Used pallets, purchased wood, but definitely have the gardeners build the tables and benches, possibly composting frames too. This is a weekend activity, you can build everything in a day or two if there are enough of us and tools. Also, prepare a fire pit, a sandpit for the kids, invent and furnish a community space. The tools will start to accumulate in the garden, storage for them will have to be figured out. In the first season, a large wooden box that we build ourselves is enough; later on, the community usually builds a proper tool storage or receives a subsidy. Always make sure that the garden looks good, that there is no clutter and that inappropriate things are not put in the garden.

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July

In July, we usually hold the grand opening of the garden. So far, there has been a lot of press coverage of the garden in the district, the project has been featured in the district’s newspapers and TV, and the opening is the culmination of this. The mayor, the members of the council, everyone who had something to do with the garden’s creation, all come. The garden members bring cakes, cookies, maybe we can make something delicious on the fireplace. There are speeches, but more interesting is the garden itself and the community, who by this time have dressed the garden up quite a bit, the beds are starting to look nice. Close cooperation with the municipal press office is important. The community garden is a rewarding subject and is often featured in the local newspaper. In the coming years, the gardens tend to celebrate the garden’s birthday, an event very similar to the opening ceremony.

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During the summer there are fewer garden meetings, everyone is in the garden anyway, we get together when we are building something or having a garden party. And of course after work, it’s nice to get out for a little watering, weeding, and conversation. It’s a way to wind down for the day. The first crops appear, and the first pests appear. Many gardeners go on holiday, arranging with remaining gardeners to water each other’s beds. In the community gardens, we don’t touch each other’s beds, that’s the rule, but we will help a fellow gardener on holiday with watering if asked. To help with pest identification and control, a botanist will come to the garden and explain and demonstrate proper control.

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August

This is the time when the harvest begins to come in droves and when most people go on holiday. Be sure to have people watching the beds, helping with irrigation. It is worthwhile to do a garden statistic in the first season, with all bed owners measuring and keeping a record of their crops. This tends to be very interesting because when you add up the final results, it turns out that the community garden produces a surprising amount of crops. In 2023, according to the garden statistics, the Böszi garden produced almost a tonne of vegetables, a surprising amount, and if you add the shop prices, you end up with a very substantial sum, not to mention the quality. Numbers in the garden.

The urban gardener can expect a return on investment of around 400-500%. This is a very similar figure to what he measured in the crisis gardens during the world war. (A válságok kertjei) Every dollar invested yielded $5 in crops. Surprisingly good business.

The last weekend in August is International World Kitchen Garden Day. Most urban gardens hold their own International Kitchen Garden Day. We hold an open garden day, with posters inviting people in the garden. The gardeners show the garden and their beds to the public. The community comes up with the programmes and organises the day’s events. It is a popular press event, or families and residents of the area come to the garden.

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September

This is the time when everything is ready, when there are lots of crops, when gardeners’ families tend to rebel against the constant eating of courgettes. The compost bins start to fill up and next spring we will have good quality compost of our own.

Composting is a constant topic of debate. There are those who conscientiously chop everything up, and others who don’t bother. Sometimes it’s just easier to cut up the larger pieces left in the composting bin than to argue or blame. The problem will be solved in a few years.

October

The season is slowly coming to an end, and we are starting to prepare to get the garden ready for the winter period. Cleaning out the beds, adding nutrients, etc. We need to organise an end-of-season build-up day in advance, usually at the end of October. A lot of green garden waste is generated at this time, so it may be worth re-learning how to compost.

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November

We are back to one meeting a month. We evaluate the year and start planning for the next season. In recent years I have sent out an online questionnaire to all garden members, a kind of satisfaction survey, with very interesting results. It helps a lot in planning the next season and the municipality is also interested in the questionnaire.

It is important, especially in the common areas, to discuss what worked, what didn’t, how to improve the garden for the next year. Many valuable comments are made about the garden, innovations, new tools, suggestions for organisation.

The last two months of the year, when the garden manager of the first season, the garden founder, leaves the garden, must be prepared for this, a new garden manager must be elected. At the garden meeting, we go through the tasks of the garden leader and the community elects garden leaders from the applicants. It is recommended to form a garden coordination team of 2-3 people, it is a bit much work for one person. It is worth clarifying who will stay in the garden, are there any leavers? New garden members will be selected from the waiting list to replace those who leave. There is turnover in every garden, with a 3-5% drop-out rate. This usually means 1-2 beds. They leave the garden for various reasons, mainly moving new house, maybe a new job that doesn’t give them time to garden.

December

To close the year, we celebrate the first season of the garden, have a party, the future garden coordination team takes over the management of the garden.

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Article series 04

It is a commonplace to say that in a community garden, ten percent is gardening and ninety percent is community life. Many people come to the garden for the companionship, the community programs, or perhaps for the environmental consciousness; the plants are really just a valuable plus.

The word of Community is a fashionable word today, it is a bit overused, it has lost much of its original meaning. In this section, I would like to describe garden communities, their development and their functioning.

Community development is an essential element in the establishment of community gardens. Potential gardeners don’t know each other when the garden is started, random volunteers, who should develop a tight-knit community by the end of the first year, who will be able to maintain and develop the garden in the following seasons. The task of the first year is to get the members to work together through conscious organisation, tasks and meetings, to develop a culture of cooperation, to finish the first season successfully and to prepare them to continue working independently. 

It is a common mistake to neglect community development when establishing a community garden, when there is no community development or no conscious element. I see many gardens that have been built by the municipality, handed over to the gardeners, but there has been no community development, it has become a chaotic, dysfunctional garden, more of an embarrassment to the municipality than a success. Communities don’t develop on their own, they need development, external intervention to help the gardening team through the first season, both to get through the season successfully and to become a community in the process. Community building is a prerequisite for the success of community gardens, an essential element.

If there is no systematic development, on the one hand, there is no culture of cooperation, and in the worst case, the community that has not yet been formed may break up into factions and small groups that hardly cooperate with each other. But there are also many examples of individuals provoking discord in the garden with their lack of community, their willfulness, as happens on a larger scale in society. Certainly there are individuals who, if not consciously, act as community destroyers, to the detriment of the community that is being formed. Such situations need to be dealt with by the garden manager, either to bring the person to their senses or to ban them from the garden.

The focus and foundation of community building is the garden itself, through which community cooperation and neighbourhood community is created. Garden communities are organised around a fixed location, where they always meet and where events take place. It is not only the garden beds and their own crops, but the development, care and events of the garden itself that build the community, giving tradition and continuity over the seasons. It is relatively easy to build community in a garden.

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It is important that every gardener and family has an individual garden bed, and it is also important that everyone has exactly the same kind of bed. Communal gardening is not viable, you can’t see how much work someone puts into their plants, how careful they are. The individual garden beds inevitably give rise to gardening competition (my tomatoes are redder, my courgettes are bigger, I have more beans, etc.) This is a very important element, because it gives a sense of achievement, it is a constant topic of conversation, and halfway through the season gardeners are already planning the plants and planting order for the next season. The garden competition is triggering of the increasing biodiversity of the garden. In addition, there are areas of common cultivation, the herb garden, flower sections, these are areas of common gardening. The long-term goal of garden communities is to achieve sustainability.

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There’s always something going on in the beds, the garden always gives you something to do, the plants give you enough pleasure and excitement, it’s easy to build a community in a garden where nature provides the rhythm, the activity and the sense of achievement, the garden manager’s job is to organise the smooth and predictable running of the garden.

Regular community events and garden meetings are essential, especially in the first season. Events can include garden meetings, building garden furniture, garden parties, garden clean-up days, hosting guests in the garden, etc. All should be well-organised events. A community garden gives you tasks, not just to keep your own bed tidy, but the whole garden. A garden is a set of tasks that require organisation, cooperation, coordination, foresight and communication. It is the combination of these and their successful operation that makes a group of gardeners a community. This is what the first season is for, to practice how to run the garden together. It is the task of the garden founder to organise these events and to see the first season through successfully. Everyone finds a task and a sense of achievement in the garden.

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Very important garden tools for community building are communal spaces, fire pits, tables and chairs, which are mostly built by garden members from pallets. This is the centre of the garden, where we can hold garden meetings during the summer, where garden cooking is done, where the conversations take place. You need to be able to sit down in the garden, you need to build lots of benches. There should be a sandpit for the children, that’s usually the community place for them.

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The fire, cooking together, has a very strong community-building power. Garden parties are a nice way to feel good, when we cook together, fry bacon, have a fire, have company, there are lots of us in the garden, and we can talk about all sorts of things.

Gardens are run according to rules: on the one hand, there is a garden contract, which defines the legal relationship between the garden and the gardener. In addition, there is a set of garden regulations, which help to define garden behaviour and cooperation. It should be mentioned that in every garden there are unwritten norms, and that the formation of community norms, customary laws and traditions is part of becoming a community. In well-established gardens that have been around for several seasons, these are an automatic part of the process. In the case of start-up gardens, the founder or garden leader leads the team in establishing them. Garden rules and norm building make the garden’s organisational functioning predictable and acceptable, and in the long term, a stable and predictable organisation.

Community development is in many ways similar to business development, but the goal is not to make a profit, but to maintain the garden and see the seasons through. Garden meetings are also similar to company meetings in many ways, there are agenda items, tasks to be done, things to be discussed, planning, resources to be allocated and monitoring to follow through. Of course, it is much more relaxed, much more informal than a corporate event, but the goal is very similar, the success of the organisation.

The one-third rule.

Becoming a community does not mean that everything becomes uniform, everyone becomes the same, everyone takes an equal part in the life of the garden. Even in established, long-operating gardens, there is a third of the membership who are very active, attending every event, another third who come most of the time, participate in the life of the garden, and a third who are much less so. It’s not a family or a company, it’s a community of volunteers. We must make sure that there are no neglected beds, that there are not a majority of people who only take care of their own beds and hardly any of the garden. From time to time, lazy garden members can be asked to leave the garden and replaced by more active, eager new members. Each garden has a long waiting list.

Education for gardeners

We are not born gardeners, and a good gardener is always learning, we are not dealing with a static thing, but with nature. Experience has shown that garden education is important for start-up gardens, both to give everyone a comprehensive basic training in growing plants and to give them professional help during the season, for example on planting day or in season for pest control. All gardens are organic with an emphasis on natural control, professional help is essential. There is a serlist of products that can be used for plant protection in the garden, but they are all ecologically neutral, we strive for natural control and prohibit the use of chemical products under any circumstances. In the same way, we do not use fertiliser in the garden, we enrich the soil of the beds with natural manure and compost produced in the garden.

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In the start-up gardens, we will hold 4 classroom sessions before the season.

In the start-up gardens, we will hold 4 classroom sessions before the season.

The topics are approximately as follows

1. Basic gardening concepts, soil and nutrients, plant classification, environmental needs (soil, nutrients, water, sunlight, temperature), plant protection, garden tools

2. Reproduction, plant protection, sowing, planting, transplanting, seedling, grafting, germination, cuttings

3. Vegetables, grouping of vegetables, their biology, ecological needs, cultivation technology, detailed description of the most important vegetables. 

4. Cultivation of medicinal plants, herbs, flowers, berries, their uses, balance between edible and ornamental plants. Flowers are multiplied in multi-seasonal gardens and gardeners start to ‘decorate’ the garden from the second season onwards. This element becomes more important as the years go by, bringing great pleasure to gardeners and residents alike.

5. Planting day. Planting day is usually held around April-May, when the temperature is warm enough to keep the plants from freezing.  It is very important that the garden teacher is present in the garden on planting day. A basic mistake of beginner gardeners is to overplant their beds, trying to grow everything. Getting the seedlings planted well, at the right distance and professionally is a very important starting event. Planting day is always a very fun, enthusiastic event, when it becomes clear that there will be gardening here, there will be a harvest here, the first season in the garden is starting. Everybody is rushing around their beds, wondering what to plant and where to plant it. It is then that it becomes clear how important it is to draw up a planting plan in advance. By the time the seedlings and seeds are in the beds, there is a little disappointment, the seedlings are too small, few people can see the July and August planting boom. 

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The planting day is also the day for planting grasses and flower seeds, and for grassing if the walking surface is grassy.

Once or twice during the season, a gardening teacher comes to the garden, a pre-arranged community event where we talk through plant diseases and pests, like a hospital visit, bed by bed, giving professional advice to the gardener. Of course everyone is clustered around her, listening to her every word.

At the end of the first season, the founder of the garden will leave the garden community and let them go. At the last garden meeting of the year, the community elects new leaders, usually 2-3 people to take over the leadership of the garden. We call it the garden coordination group. The point of community building is that by the end of the process the community is able to run the seasons themselves, they no longer need outside intervention, they have become self-reliant and have elected their own garden leadership.

Sikeresen túl vagyunk a Toldy kert ünnepélyes megnyitóján. Ez Kispesten az ötödik közösségi-városi kert, amúgy a kilencedik kertalapításom. Sok nehézség után, egy nagyon jó kert született és bár kicsit elcsúszott a kertépítés, mégis lett egy elég jó szezon, a következő évek meg még jobbak lesznek.Az elkövetkező években a kert továbbfejlesztése lesz a feladat, kialakítani a fűszerkertet, virágágyásokat, továbbfejleszteni a közösségi teret. Lesz munka vele elég.

Ez a Toldy kert adatlapja.

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.

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Concept plans for the Békási Garden

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Concept plans for the Böszi Garden

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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