RE: need info. on other community gardens

H* A*

David:

The Eagle Heights Community Gardens is the largest and longest running
community garden that I personally know of in the United States. Our NYC
community garden http://www.clintoncommunitygarder.org is miniscule and a
mere infant in comparison. 

To be frank, you guys have been extremely fortunate to have a great landlord
and so much space. I think that your governance problems are caused by the
750-1000 gardeners not realizing their amazing good fortune and feeling that
the garden is a given, like sunshine. Getting grant money for governance
from the University is not a good idea. The University might say, screw it
and build a gymnasium on the garden land.  If the membership cares enough to
have a community garden, then they have to make the sacrifice of time, or
money to run it properly don't know if you charge fees for your 600 foot
plots ( in NYC most people live in apartments of 600sq feet or less) but
there should be a work or money requirement for these plots. From these
fees, you could hire your own special projects coordinator for your
children's project. 

I belong to a steering committee for the CCG of 10-15 members ( we usually
lose steering committee members by attrition)  that meets officially on a
monthly basis throughout the year. We have a rotating chair, a record keeper
and a treasurer because we do not have a president ( we avoid a cult of
personality, assassination by garden shears, etc. that way). We have
subcommittees of steering committee members and gardeners who handle
specific projects ( the building of a new shed, bee hive, special events,
children's story telling - gardening). 

Bottom line: Your community gardeners need to invest more energy into your
garden's community. Otherwise it just becomes a commons that University
folks tend without a real sense of responsibility for others.

Good luck. Tell me what happens,

Adam Honigman
Bowne Publishing Division
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
Tel: (212) 414-8933
Fax: (212) 229-3421
email: adam.honigman@bowne.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	David R. Shiffert [SMTP:drshiffe@students.wisc.edu]
> Sent:	Wednesday, February 23, 2000 11:43 PM
> To:	community_garden@mallorn.com
> Subject:	[cg] need info. on other community gardens
> 
> Eagle Heights Community Gardens needs your help.  EHCG is an organic
> community garden that has existed on the University of Wisconsin-Madison
> campus since 1962.  Each year we have between 750-1000 gardeners
> cultivating our land, about half of whom are affiliated in some way with
> the University.  We have 456 individual garden plots, each one
> approximately 600 square feet in size.  We currently occupy about 6.5
> acres
> of space.  To date, EHCG has been run each year by a committee of
> volunteer
> gardeners, with no paid members.  We are writing a grant proposal to the
> University to seek funding for a Garden Coordinator because we have never
> been able to follow through on any of the programming (for example a
> Children's Gardening Program) that gets underway during any given year.
> We
> believe that we are one of the largest community gardens in the country,
> and one of the oldest continously operating ones, but we don't know for
> sure.  
> 
> My questions for the wider gardening community are this:  
> 
> 1. How do we compare with other community gardens in terms of 
> a. the number of gardeners we serve (750-1000)
> b. the size of our plots (600 square ft.)
> c. the acreage that we occupy (6.5 acres)
> 
> Your response is deeply appreciated!
> 
> 
> 
> David Shiffert, EHG Chairperson
> 909-D Eagle Heights
> Madison, WI 53705-1611
> H 238-7966
> drshiffe@students.wisc.edu
> www.sit.wisc.edu\~ehgarden
> 
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