https://modernfarmer.com/2023/08/food-costs-communal-gardening/ Farm. Food. Life. Tue, 30 Jul 2024 17:41:39 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 https://modernfarmer.com/2023/08/food-costs-communal-gardening/#comment-65981 Sun, 13 Aug 2023 15:41:59 +0000 https://modernfarmer.com/?p=149809#comment-65981 I’ll pass. Never know if someone might help themselves to the best produce late at night. Have my own little garden.

]]> https://modernfarmer.com/2023/08/food-costs-communal-gardening/#comment-65974 Sun, 13 Aug 2023 14:46:21 +0000 https://modernfarmer.com/?p=149809#comment-65974 I like the idea of communal gardening. Sounds great. But Creve Coeur is a wealthy community (about $100K per family annual income). Given the initial investment in land (which, incidentally, may well be polluted in most urban areas due to industrial smoke, motor vehicle exhaust, past use of lawn care products, etc.) and equipment, plus the amount of time each participant must invest in gardening (Jarvis, in Nova Scotia, spends 3 hours a day and complains that “her day job often interfered with the work she needed to do at the farm” LOL), this type of project is out of reach for the people who need the food the most. The reduction in food costs that some participants claim most likely is illusory: garden labor isn’t free, seed isn’t free, and nature remains unpredictable for gardeners as well as farmers: your crop can be completely wiped out due to bad weather, pests, and disease. I like the old model of the WWII Victory Gardens: grow your own in your backyard and have your kids do the gardening. This is no longer reasonable in most areas due to the decrease in single-family residences with even a small yard area. In sum, I’d say urban communal gardening sounds better than it is, a “feel good” project that results in a participant holding up a perfect heirloom tomato from her part of the garden and saying, “Look! It’s beautiful! It’s delicious! And it only cost me $35 each to grow it.”

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