Living in the city mean gaining a lot — easy access to great restaurants, shopping, museums, etc — but it can also mean giving up a lot — square footage, easy parking, and backyard gardening. Fortunately for city dwellers with a green thumb, DC has a wide variety of community gardens spread out across the city.
What is ‘community gardening’?
Community gardening, also know as urban gardening, is exactly what it sounds like. Generally seen in cities and other places where house with lawns are the exception rather than the rule, community gardens are formed when a group of gardeners is able to find unused land or underutilized land and obtain permission to begin a garden in the space. Gardens are generally either divided into plots for individual gardeners or the entire space is gardened communally. Some gardeners may focus on flowers and other ornamental plants, while others may grow fruits, vegetables and other edibles.
By now, I think that we have all noticed that our economy has gone down the tank (and if you haven’t noticed, where have you been hiding? Can I join you there?). Growing your own food in a community garden can be a great way to save some money and to supplement regular meals with fresh, healthy and organic (if you choose to garden organically) fruits and veggies.
How can I find a community garden in DC?
There are many community gardens throughout the city, in every quadrant and a wide variety of neighborhoods. Some gardens are relatively new and others have been around 10, 15 years or longer. Some gardens have websites, such as the 7th Street Garden in Shaw, the Temple Garden for gardeners in the Dupont Circle/Logan Circle/Adams Morgan area, and the Hill East Garden in Capitol Hill. While I have been hard pressed to find an absolutely complete list of community gardens in the city, the following websites have compiled the majority of the gardens, along with contact information if you are interested in learning more about a particular garden: Community Gardens DC and DC Community Gardens. Due to the increasing interest in urban gardening, many DC community gardens have long wait lists or are not currently accepting new applications. Don’t let that discourage you! If you can’t find a space in a community garden, why not start your own!
All you will need to do is to find a few like-minded community gardeners-to-be, explore resources in your neighborhood to find space, such as local businesses, parks, your ANC rep or your ward’s council member, and get started! Okay, so it may be a little more work than that, but if you love to garden or you think that you might love gardening if given the chance to try, it is worth the effort!
Resources and information for community and urban gardeners
The hands-down best local resource I have found for DC community gardeners is DC Urban Gardeners (no, DC Urban Gardeners did not pay me for this plug, but hey, if they want to…).
The Washington Post ran a great series about the Glover Park Community Garden in 2008. The entire series can be viewed here.
The American Community Garden Association is a national organization with the mission of building community by increasing and enhancing community gardening and greening across the United States and Canada. They have a database of community gardens across the country, information about starting a community garden, and a store with a wide variety of books about community gardening.
Wow, DC Avenger! You have really opened my eyes to community gardening!
Hey, it’s no problem! There are many advantages to living in the city but many disadvantages as well (insert Marion Barry joke?). Now you know that having a garden of your own does not have to be one of those disadvantages. A community garden will allow you to show off your green thumb and maybe help you save a few bucks on groceries, but, just as importantly, it will also help you to get to know your neighbors. Who knows, you may discover a shared love of an incredibly rare heirloom tomato with that guy from down the block. And that’s priceless!
Hugs & Kisses,
DC Avenger
[...] Avenger surveys the urban gardening scene: “Living in the city mean gaining a lot — easy access to great restaurants, shopping, [...]
I want to introduce myself…..My name is Ben Fairfield and I am one of the founders of The Urban Garden Project™. The Urban Garden Project™ is the initiative to encourage Americans to learn from history, become more self-reliant, save a significant amount of money, and eat healthier, all as a result of planting their own urban garden! The goal of The Urban Garden Project™ is to encourage and catalogue the creation of 100,000 urban gardens by 2020. We know that this is a sizeable goal, but we will accomplish it 1 garden at a time!
As a result of your successful blog and your obvious passion for gardening I was hoping that you would visit our website at http://www.urbangardenproject.wordpress.com to learn more about the project. It costs nothing to support the project; we simply need help getting the word out to the world so that we can begin to catalog existing or new urban gardens. It would also be great to be able to add you to our garden catalog and link to your site through our blogroll! The official kick off for the project is April 1st 2009 and we are busy creating videos, tutorials, product reviews and more to make visiting worth everyone’s time!
I am hoping that as a result of our shared passion for gardening you can help us in spreading the word about The Urban Garden Project™. Again, your support costs nothing. Our mission is pure and we hope that you can come along side us in this project to grow the gardening community and the number of urban gardens!
Thank you so much for your time and we are looking forward to you visiting our site and letting us add your garden to our growing catalog of gardens from across the world!
Have a great day!
Ben Fairfield
dc avengers, with all your avenging, you still find time to garden? and blog?
Color me impressed!
As you may have heard, my own… experience with community gardening was … somewhat… limited!
all those rules: weed this, garden that! so restrictive on poor little washy. but hey, can you grow some cilantro for me and tulips and … oh wait, I’m growing them myself now and nobody’s yelling at me! 