If you live in the city, dwell in an apartment, and or have very little yard to spare for a garden, it is still quite possible to grow your own vegetables and enjoy a bountiful harvest from your very  own garden each year. Community gardens are a fantastic way to put to use unused land for the good of your neighborhood. If you have an opportunity to participate in an ongoing community garden in your neighborhood, you will find one of the greatest gardening experiences one can have.

Community Gardens Offer Shared Knowledge

When you have a plot in a community garden, you have the chance to work side by side with seasoned gardeners. What better way to learn everything you can about gardening than spading right alongside other enthusiasts who share your love for working the soil. When you garden in a community garden, there is always someone available to offer advice. You can take advantage of the knowledge of your friends and neighbors and see firsthand what works and doesn’t work in the garden.

Many community gardens also have group meetings in which gardeners can share ideas, advice and even ask questions. Sometimes the group meetings include a special guest speaker or a trip to someplace such as a botanical garden or organic orchard. If you belong to a community garden and your group doesn’t meet together, you can always suggest it or even invite a few of your gardening friends to a lunch in which you can learn from each other and discuss gardening.

Community Gardens Offer  Shared Resources

When you garden within a group or community setting, there is the opportunity to share resources such as tools or wheelbarrows. You can even get together with several other gardeners to purchase things like mulch, fertilizer or fencing in bulk. This saves everyone money and is very convenient because everything can be delivered to the garden at one time.

Many people that utilize community gardens tend to work at different times. This makes a community garden the ideal place for sharing tools. If each person that is gardening on a certain lot is responsible to purchase and care for one or two tools, everyone has access to several tools they might be otherwise unable to afford.

Community Gardens Offer Shared Harvests

When you are limited by space, a community garden allows you to have a bountiful harvest despite the fact that you didn’t plant much. The best community gardens work on a bartering system. Each gardener should plant one or two things that they grow best. Then at the end of the season, trades can be made for the vegetables that weren’t grown. When trades occur, everyone has a huge harvest.

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