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Results of a US and Canada community garden survey: shared challenges in garden management amid diverse geographical and organizational contexts

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Abstract

Community gardens are of increasing interest to scholars, policymakers, and community organizations but there has been little systematic study of community garden management at a broad scale. This study complements case study research by revealing shared experiences of community garden management across different contexts. In partnership with the American Community Gardening Association, we developed an online questionnaire. Results from 445 community garden organizations across the US and Canada reveal common themes as well as differences that are particularly significant across different organizational sizes. The findings suggest that organizers see multiple benefits, and respondents confirmed recent expansion of gardening efforts. Analysis then focuses on challenges, which are closely related to garden management. We address garden losses as well as challenges to routine operation. Key challenges included funding, participation, land, and materials. We developed a typology based on organization size, to reveal distinctions between small organizations (serving 1 garden), medium-sized organizations (2–3 gardens), large organizations (4–30 gardens) and very large organizations (31 or more gardens). These categories shed light on different needs for funding, land, material, and participation. Together, this analysis suggests that community gardens can be linked through the work it takes to sustain them rather than specific causes or outcomes. Community gardens can be better integrated into local food systems through analysis of how people involved with this work navigate these shared processes.

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Notes

  1. The ambiguity in the definitions of community gardens, and the fact that the total number of community gardens is unknown, limits our use of inferential statistics.

  2. For full results, see Lawson and Drake (2013).

  3. Respondents did not know the land ownership type for 6 % of the community gardens they reported.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Rutgers University, 54 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA

    Luke Drake

  2. Department of Landscape Architecture, Rutgers University, 93 Lipman Drive, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901, USA

    Luke Drake & Laura J. Lawson

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  1. Luke Drake
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  2. Laura J. Lawson
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Correspondence to Luke Drake.

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Drake, L., Lawson, L.J. Results of a US and Canada community garden survey: shared challenges in garden management amid diverse geographical and organizational contexts. Agric Hum Values 32, 241–254 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-014-9558-7

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