Ask an Advisor Answers

Question: I am the coordinator of three new community gardens and am trying to come up with a few training sessions for them. Some topics I would like to cover are: Organic gardening, Community Organizing, Promoting Ownership, and Conservation. Would you be able to point me in a good direction?
Answer: Congratulations on your new position! We are sure it will be a wonderfully fulfilling one for you, and an asset to your community. We are no more than amateur gardeners, but we do know that there is plenty of information out there on community gardener training. You may have to do a little digging around to get it, if you will pardon the pun. But one site we would recommend in particular is www.oasisnyc.net, which deals with community gardens in New York City, but which also has multiple links to other sites, including a community garden list-serve where you could ask your same question of people who have more specific gardening expertise than we do. You might also check out www.civicgardencenter.org, based in Cincinnati, which conducts extensive training for its own community gardeners. Speaking more generally, some of the potential training topics you mention, such as training for volunteers, are covered in the Community Tool Box (see in particular Chapter 11 on Volunteers, and Section 4 within that chapter on Training Volunteers). Chances are good you will be dealing with issues of membership, planning, and publicity as well, which are also generally addressed within the Tool Box, as is community organizing. Take a look at the Table of Contents for specific chapter and section references. Beyond that, we see community gardens as a significant opportunity to promote community connections more generally, and perhaps also as a springboard for generating other positive community outcomes. If you can keep your eyes open to those possibilities, that will be an added plus. If you develop an actual training manual, we hope you will let us know about it, so that we can then mention it to others! But in the meantime, we hope some of these thoughts may be helpful to you. Thank you for writing to us at the Community Tool Box; and all best wishes for success in your most important work.
Question Date: Fri, 06/01/2007