Tips for YOUR community Garden

• Assign tasks to the gardeners outside of their own plots (ie, filling the water tank, turning the compost, removing garbage etc)
• Create an easy-to-read list of rules or guidelines for the garden (ie. a list of banned plants, that the garden is pesticide free, or to keep weeds under control)
  
• Determine a budget at the beginning of the year to make sure that money is available to cover big purchase items if needed.
  
• Create good communication with the neighbours near the garden, their extra sets of eyes can help cut down on vandalism.
• Also, create good communication among the gardeners at your garden by creating a listserv, a newsletter, or even simply a whiteboard at the garden to leaves messages for each other.
  
• Get the gardeners to participate in the garden clean-up at the end of the season by having some or all of their fees refunded.
• Understand that people will contribute when you rely on their strengths. Find out what they are good at and ask them to contribute in a way that uses these strengths.
• Reach out to your community in one of these ways: use your garden as a platform for diverse community members to interact, engage Sunday Schools  by providing them with a plot, inviting neighbourhood children to make hand prints in the concrete when your garden is starting up.
• Mosquitoes might deter gardeners at night. Try using citronella sprays or sprinkle pine needles.
  
• Provide a plot for youth in the community to prevent theft and vandalism.
• Subsidize some plots in your garden for people on a limited budget. For some people, $20 for a plot is a barrier to participating.
  
• Also, allow the gardeners to sell their produce at a fundraiser.
  
• Promote your garden through word-of-mouth, websites, community bulletin boards, newsletters, flyers in local stores and email notices.
• Create an event where your gardeners go door-to-door and see if you can get members of the community to donate tools.
• Or, if this is not something that you think your gardeners would want to do, see if you can acquire some free tools by making a request in your local paper or on websites like Freecycle and Kijiji.
  
• Have a water source close to your garden so that gardeners with less moblility do not need to worry about bringing their own water.
  
• Or consider an alternative type of garden in which there is one shared plot. It can make gardening more social, fun and productive.

If you are looking for information about garden governance, check out Including gardeners in community garden decisions.

If you have a community garden, but are not quite sure how to get the word out and generate interest in your project from the public, media, and politicians, check out  How to Promote A Community Garden!