Starting a community garden, first steps
Article series 02
In the previous article, we talked about the history of community gardens, now we will learn about the process of establishing urban gardens.
Privately owned urban land is rarely considered, as the owner has an interest in building a store, a housing estate or a car park on the allotment, which generates money, whereas a community garden has no profit-making function. This is why municipalities and municipal land are the most likely targets, especially in residential areas. The high population density in housing estates makes recruitment easy and at the same time there are thousands of square metres of little used land in housing areas that are suitable for gardens. It is no coincidence that most of the community gardens in Budapest were created in blocks of flats.
An average community garden is about 1,000 square metres, it is important that it is close to residential areas, with enough sunlight it should be sunny, you should be able to manage irrigation water, and it should be surrounded by a fence. Without a fence there is no community garden, without a water network you cannot grow plants. The municipality tends to designate areas as gardens that are either functionless or have lost their former function. We have had gardens built on the site of a long-defunct playground, another garden on the site of an old, long-defunct park, and gardens that were illegal dog runs. What should be avoided, for example, is to take land from an existing well functioning park to use as a community garden, this is very wrong, it should be avoided.
Today it is not difficult to convince municipalities of the benefits of establishing a community garden, this is now commonplace and obvious, it was a bit different before. Today, the problem is more a lack of quality and a lack of thought in the projects. Some municipalities think that it is enough to build the garden and it will work well. The reality is that it is not that simple, unfortunately we have seen many really embarrassingly failed garden launches in recent years. The peculiarity of a botched garden is that there are no professionals involved in the establishment, there is no concept of developing the garden community, there is no garden management or it is done by an incompetent person, there is no gardening education, there are no community events, everyone is just making their own bed, and the garden as a whole is in the process of being ruined.
The first step was to get the attention of the municipality. The task was to demonstrate the community gardens, how they work and, most importantly, why they are worthwhile for the municipality, through a spectacular presentation, using international examples. At the beginning, everyone liked the initiative, but the realisation was difficult, mainly because of the untried and new nature of the idea. If the Mayor says yes to the development, the hard part starts from there. Municipalities are quite complex organisations, with many laws and regulations affecting their operation, and there is also the representative body who ultimately have to vote on the garden establishment. In the very first municipal community garden, the Első Kis-Pesti Kert almost every municipal committee and department had a word in the project, and all had to be approved and supported before the garden could be started. This took nearly a year, with legal negotiations, financial planning, property management, voting by the Board of Representatives, etc. Ultimately, the aim is to ensure that the Community Garden is included in the municipal budget for the next financial year, that capital is allocated to it and that the conditions for its design, construction and operation are clarified, and that it is legally and contractually implemented. The council and the departments will only give the project the go-ahead if they are certain that the future garden is destined to succeed and cannot fail. The council’s primary concern is that the garden shoul be a success, that they have as few problems with it as possible, that it does not cause them any trouble or extra work. Of course, this is understandable, municipal work is a profession full of stress and problems, they don’t need another confrontation, they have enough.
The fundamental secret to the survival of urban community gardens is a kind of common benefit, a “win-win” situation for gardeners, neighbourhood residents, the municipality and city (district) leaders, in which everyone finds the benefits of the gardens accruing to them. What are these benefits?
The benefits of community gardeners
First and foremost, benefits are not necessarily a monetary value, and in fact in gardens we are talking more about benefits that cannot be bought with money. The benefits of gardeners are somewhere in the range of: busyness, responsibility and a sense of achievement, a sense of enrichment, pride, a caring experience, a life perspective, satisfaction, physical well-being, health-mental benefits, quantity of crops, learning new skills, community experience, educational processes, children in the garden, cooperation with others, closeness to nature, conversations, fame, press coverage. And of course, your own produce. There are so many benefits. Everyone can choose the one that is most important to them.
In a community garden, ten percent of the time is gardening, ninety percent is community life: tending beds and common areas, garden meetings, conversations, occasional garden parties, playing with children and relaxing. Getting away from the routine of home or work, blending into a wider group, is something everyone needs. There are so many different things to talk about in a garden, so many new stories to hear, while the garden and its plants give us a sense of occupation and pleasure. In the summer, when the heat is barely bearable, the garden is the place to relax, cool off, have fun and talk a lot. Today, when loneliness is almost a universal disease, the community garden is the best catalyst for making friends, talking to others, feeling important, becoming part of an active community.
Of course, the quantity of crops is very important. Growing your own produce is always better and healthier than buying it, and it has a special bond with the gardener. Moreover, you can harvest an amazing amount of produce from a bed of 5-7 square metres, and at a time when we are seeing unprecedented increases in the price of fruit and vegetables, this is what counts. And interestingly, the benefits only increase from here, as raw vegetables are turned into food, another level of creativity and another sense of achievement is garnered. In the gardens, recipes are a serious topic of conversation, who makes what from their produce, and gardeners regularly bring in tasters. When we have garden parties, you can taste them and be proud of our culinary art.
In some gardens, especially in the first season, we did garden statistics. The idea is that everyone measures their own crops and we put them together in a chart. 2023 in the Böszi Barden ( Budapest XII district, Böszörményi út) the following data came out at the end of the season.
366 kg of tomatoes, 25 kg of peppers, 26 kg of eggplants, 148 kg of cucumbers, 145 kg of courgettes, 45 kg of pumpkins, 14 kg of melons, 13 kg of carrots, 22 kg of batata, 10 kg of kohlrabi, 30 kg of green beans and so on. In total, 51 crops are included in the statistics, and there was almost a tonne of produce. It was a good season for the garden.
Numbers in the Community Gardens
These volumes are of course also expressed in money terms and the quality was very high. Own produce. It is very important to note that the produce of the community garden is not for sale, it is for personal use and self-sufficiency. This is laid down in the garden rules and in the garden contract and applies to all gardens.
Benefits for the district, the neighbourhood and the municipality
Urban green spaces are overused, very difficult to maintain and extremely expensive. The natural need of city residents is for their living environment to be as green as possible and to be as flowery as possible. At the same time, city residents themselves are rather careless with the environment, littering, polluting and destroying their green surroundings, whether for a reason or not. In addition, gardening is extremely expensive, a serious expense for local authorities year after year.
For a municipality, to designate a thousand square metres of land, build a good quality urban garden on it, spend money on community development, to start the garden, is a minimal investment compared to the annual budget of the municipality, but what you get in return is far more than the investment cost. For example: the district will be enriched with a very active neighbourhood community, a very high quality, biodiverse garden, a positive press coverage, both in the local press and in the national press. The garden is shaping the image of the district, is a new and popular initiative, and is featured in all district publications, films and environmental events. The garden is self-sustaining, it needs to be built once and then it runs itself, it gets more beautiful every year, the maintenance costs to the municipality are minimal.(It’s worthwhile for the municipality to count some amortization costs for the gardens and to help the garden develop, but it’s not a big item.) The garden communities don’t just exist within the fence, they appear at district events, host kindergarten and school classes in the garden, for example in the framework of the “Biology Lessons in the Community Garden” programme, to which the residents of the area and other NGOs are invited. The community gardens hold open days, members take part in district green actions, many researchers and graduate students study the gardens, this is also a reputation, this is also a benefit.
The urban garden is a small model of how we can live better, create a better quality of life, cultivate ourselves and our communities, our beds, our environment and the neighbourhoods where we live, within the city. Moreover, the district leadership can be a partner in this, working together towards a good goal.
