Van Dycks

I often think about what would happen to me should I be forced for some reason to live in an apartment, or in some big city with no green spaces where I can plant flowers and trees.How does a gardener survive if they have no space at home to garden?

I found one answer when the Garden Writers Association toured the gardens of Philadelphia a couple of years ago. We saw all kinds of beautiful public gardens, and many private ones, including some on urban rooftops. But the most interesting garden of all was located in the middle of downtown Philly. It was a community garden – a place where different gardeners are given a space of their own where they can garden to their heart's content. Many people used their space to grow fresh vegetables, but a few planted flower gardens – which many of us believe do as much to nourish the soul as a food crop does to nourish the body. Most gardeners opted to grow food crops as well as flowers – to nourish both body and soul.

In fact, the way growing things nourishes the soul is one of the main reasons that so many people create community gardens, not just in urban spaces but even in more rural areas. After all, even more rural areas have people without a spot to nurture green things. And the psychological benefits of gardening are undeniable. A study by Parsons, a Texas A&M researcher, showed that simply looking at plant could reduce stress, fear, and anger, and lower blood pressure and muscle tension.  

Researchers with an anthropological bent have often theorized that our prehistoric ancestors used trees and plants not just as food sources but as shelter, so that they became essential to survival. The positive association of green, growing things may have been passed down to us almost genetically from those early ancestors.

Another study by Bernadine Cimprich, a nurse who works with cancer patients demonstrates how beneficial not just looking, but actually tending a garden can be. Her patients who agreed to participate in gardening activities not only increased their ability to focus outward, as opposed to dwelling on illness and ill fortune,  but they also returned to work and normal activities more quickly than those who did not participate.

So – gardening is good for us. Why not just give people with no yard a giant container and let them tend that?

Because gardening is also good for the community. In some cases, it has actually turned potential delinquents into productive members of society. Charles Lewis of the Morton Arboretum, when working with high-rise public housing projects in both New York and Chicago found that a particularly effective way to cut down on vandalism in these areas was to get the troublemakers involved in the garden. They not only worked off their aggressive tendencies by digging big holes and prying our rocks and oversized weeds, but also suddenly found themselves responsible for a part of their environment. In working the garden, it became theirs - and they became protectors instead of aggressors. Asking juvenile offenders to give their time to a community gardening project has become an excellent way to help both the neighborhood and the offender.

But that green space did more than help the juvenile offenders. It benefited the entire community, not just because the neighborhood became safer, but because it became an oasis, a spot of beauty, something that the community could take pride in. Gardens full of healthy growing things actually improve physical factors such as temperature, noise, and pollution. More importantly, when green spaces become available through a community garden, people suddenly have a public place in which to walk and talk – to become a more cohesive community. If you've gardened, you know the joy that comes from getting together with other gardeners to compare notes and share our best hints, tips and plants. In a community garden, you not only work by yourself to tend your allotment, but together with others to create a beautiful whole. Put a bunch of happy gardeners into a community that they work together to build and you have a micro-society of pleased people – a society more than happy to show off the fruits of their labors to other non-gardeners who may stop by to admire.Neighbors who may otherwise not even known each others name are suddenly sharing far more.

Moreover, people in a community garden feel that they have some measure of control over their environment – something that it's too easy to lose, especially in crowded urban areas. In turn, that control creates a space that can actually help to raise property values in the immediate vicinity to the community garden. What was once a weed-filled empty lot goes from barren to green – from an eyesore to an advantage.

Sometimes these community gardens provide even more than psychological and social benefits. They can help people to earn cold, hard cash, should they also work together to sell their excess produce.

At the same time, it gives gardeners the opportunity to help those less fortunate than they. Produce can be donated to local soup kitchens. Areas of a community garden can be dedicated especially to projects like the Garden Writer's Association "Plant a Row for the Hungry" campaign. Just one extra row – and suddenly even the underprivileged can find themselves in a position to help others – surely a massive boost to self-esteem.

A 1994 survey by the National Gardening Association showed the following positive results resulting when people form community gardens.

• Gardeners ate fresh produce from their gardens 5 months of the year
• 62 percent of the gardeners preserved some of their harvest
• Food was shared with neighbors and relatives on a weekly basis
• More than 40 percent of the gardeners shared food with a church or community organization
• In 1987, gardeners were realizing an average net of $113 from their plots. A dollar per square foot is a conservative estimate of what a gardener can expect to realize from his effort.

The produce also provided better nutrition than these gardeners normally enjoyed, with the additional benefit of increased health.

And the increase in beauty – not just from neat, orderly rows of food crops but from spaces brimming with flowers and ornamental plants, gave everyone an immense psychological boost. So much so that it seems like a good idea to create community gardens even in areas where people have their own green space. The many benefits the garden gives to the community are well worth the effort. And the increased opportunities for interaction with others are almost crucial in this era where baby boomers form a large and rapidly graying portion of the population.

So creating a community garden is not just a way to give back to the community, but a way to become integrated with that community, to become more connected with our neighbors as well as more in touch with ourselves.

The American Community Garden Association has an excellent set of guidelines for starting a community garden on its website.

If you're reading this, you probably have some sort of space where you can get your hands dirty and grow your own flowers and food. But why not think about growing more – your community, your sense of creativity and self-esteem – and your circle of friends.