Best Practices for Campus Community Gardens
Although community gardening on college campuses is not a new concept, they have recently grown in popularity. However, campus community gardens have not been extensively researched and information regarding best practices has not yet been developed and would be a useful tool for both existing campus community gardens and institutions wishing to begin a community garden. Campus community gardens provide an interactive and service-learning education tool in agriculture, agribusiness, horticulture, landscape design and use, social sciences, and human nutrition. Campus community gardens provide opportunities for students, faculty and staff to gain practical, life-long skills pertaining to growing food and access to fresh fruits and vegetables. In order to understand current practices of organization, operation, use and purposes of campus community gardens, an online survey was conducted of approximately one hundred campus community garden advisors and/or managers. The survey included demographic information, management, funding, liabilities, risks, obstacles and successes, uses, and operations of the gardens. Follow-up visits to five campus community gardens provided further information regarding on-site garden management and specific best practices of the garden. From this information, a manual of best practices will be developed to further the understanding of campus community garden logistics, in addition to providing encouragement for institutions without campus community gardens to establish a garden.