Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
This exercise might or might not be easy. This is where all the community building that has been done to
date—for example, creating group norms about respecting opinions and ideas; the shared vision of the mis-
sion statement—start to (hopefully) reap rewards. You'll also see certain individuals rise up through this dis-
cussion by either moderating or using their drawing skills (or both) to get the group's collective garden on
paper. There might be struggles or disagreements. There might be laughter or raised voices. This is all wel-
come, and exactly the point of this exercise—to get people designing together, creating together, coming to
agreement together.
If you have many groups, put individual group drafts on a wall and take 10 minutes for everyone to re-
view all the different versions. You'll start to see themes emerge! If you have just a few small groups, go
ahead and have each group present their findings without posting the images on a wall. Hopefully you'll find
consistent ideas showing up in multiple garden designs that the groups presented
You have a few choices at this point—you can press on and combine elements from the individual gar-
dens into one collective group design, with one appointed person using a blank handout to incorporate ele-
ments from all of the groups' drawings. Or, if, after this exercise, people are a bit fried, go ahead and end the
meeting (on a positive note) and agree to return for more refining at the next meeting. You can also agree to
turn the ideas over to a landscape designer or artist volunteer from your group to compile the ideas into a nar-
rower selection of one to three design concepts, which can be presented and voted on when the drawings are
presented at your next gathering.
Plan for sun and shading when you plant.
Gate
If the garden is to have a fence, account for the swing radius of the gate in your design when pla-
cing raised beds or garden rows. If the gate is located on an alley or street, make sure it swings inward
so car or pedestrian traffic can't become blocked.
Clearance
Amenities like benches, storage areas and containers, compost bins, and stages need easy
access and clearance space. Shared amenities are best situated, when possible, where most gardeners
can reach them easily.
Accessibility
You may have senior citizens or people with mobility issues as members. Accessibility
needs to be well thought out. To make gardening as simple as possible for these participants, consider
positioning their areas or raised beds as close to the entrance and amenities as possible. Some seating
nearby is nice, too.
Communication station
Set aside a highly visible area for communicating with gardeners, such as a
sheltered whiteboard or corkboard. Place it where organizational and personal messages and announce-
ments can easily be posted by and for the gardeners.
