Start a Community Food Garden: The Essential Handbook

Community gardens are quickly becoming a primary source for fresh food in urban, suburban, and rural areas. In Start a Community Food Garden, LaManda Joy outlines how to best build community, plan the garden, mobilize volunteers, and grow delicious food. 
 
 

Community gardening enhances the fabric of towns and cities through social interactions and accessibility to fresh food, creating an enormously positive effect in the lives of everyone it touches. LaManda Joy, the founder of Chicago’s Peterson Garden Project and a board member of the American Community Gardening Association, has worked in the community gardening trenches for years and brings her knowledge to the wider world in Start a Community Food Garden. This hardworking guide covers every step of the process: fundraising, community organizing, site sourcing, garden design and planning, finding and managing volunteers, and managing the garden through all four seasons. A section dedicated to the basics of growing was designed to be used by community garden leaders as an educational tool for teaching new members how to successfully garden.