Garden construction will vary greatly depending on the layout of the land and the group's garden vision. Soil quality, accessibility and design are all important considerations.
This section includes resources on designing the community garden, including a section of guidelines for accessible gardens. Consider who will be using the garden and make the planning and design process as inclusive and participatory as possible.
Title: Start a Garden
Sponsoring Organization: Vermont Community Garden Network
Description: See Section 5, "Design your garden site" for links to useful tools such as "Site Analysis: Creating a Base Map" and "Hosting a Design Charrette" (a way to include others in planning for the garden design).
Title: Community Garden Best Practices Toolkit
Sponsoring Organization: Food Security Network of Newfoundland and Labrador
Description: See Step 6, "Plan and Design the Garden" (p. 16-17) and Appendix K, "Design Guidelines for Community Gardens" (p. 41).
Title: Pleasantville Community Garden Guide: Building a Garden
Sponsoring Organization: Pleasantville Community Garden
Description: See section 2, "Planning Out the Garden."
Title: Community Garden Guide: Vegetable Garden Planning and Development
Sponsoring Organization: USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
Description: This 12-page guide covers factors such as garden shape, row orientation, soil preparation techniques, etc., and includes worksheets for planning garden size based on the spacing needed for the vegetable plants desired.
Title: Accessible and Inclusive Gardens
Sponsoring Organization: National Recreation and Park Association
Description: This 6-page PDF is a chapter out of a larger document, "Building a Community Garden in Your Park." Offers detailed guidelines for designing accessible gardens.
Title: A Guide for Making Community Gardens Accessible for All
Sponsoring Organization: Grassroots Gardens of Buffalo (author: Melissa Bravo)
Description: A comprehensive, 99-page PDF guide to making gardens more accessible for people of all ages and abilities, including detailed instructions and examples for creating accessible walkways, raised beds, vertical gardening, accessible tools, etc.
Knowing what's in the soil of your site can be an important factor influencing your initial design decisions (such as considering raised beds or containers) as well as later decisions and activities such as making soil amendments and ongoing maintenance. In addition to the resources below, see What is Soil and Why is Soil Health Important.
Title: Safe Gardening & Greening Resources
Sponsoring Organization: Groundwork USA
Description: "Vacant land and brownfield sites have the potential to be reclaimed as safe and nourishing community assets—provided urban gardeners and community builders understand the risks and follow best practices to protect themselves and communities from exposure to contaminants." This set of tools includes guides such as "Knowing Your Soil," an overview of common urban land uses and their associated contaminants, along with resources for testing and soil remediation; and "Best Practices for Food Production in Areas Suspected of Contamination." (Yonkers-based Groundwork Hudson Valley is a member of the Groundwork USA network of local organizations "devoted to transforming the natural and built environment of low-resource communities.")
Title: Urban Gardening: Managing the Risks of Contaminated Soil
Sponsoring Organization: Environmental Health Perspectives (online journal)
Description: Through the experience of gardeners facing challenging, contaminated soils in Providence, Boston, and New Orleans, this article describes the issues facing urban gardeners and ways they have chosen to address toxicity and other issues. Includes a sidebar on “Best Management Practices for Urban Gardens.”
Title: SoilSHOP Toolkit
Sponsoring Organization: The CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
Description: The name soilSHOP stands for Soil Screening, Health, Outreach and Partnership. This toolkit was designed to help communities and other groups plan their own soilSHOP events, where they can receive free soil screenings for lead, information on safe gardening practices, and more.
Title: Elder-Accessible Gardening: A Community Building Option for Brownfields Redevelopment
Sponsoring Organization: U.S. EPA Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization
Description: This 8-page PDF covers the factors to consider and resources (including financial) available to help turn contaminated brownfields into community gardens, giving examples of several sites safely developed into accessible gardens for the elderly.
Title: Pleasantville Community Garden Guide: Gardening--Soil Maintenance
Sponsoring Organization: Pleasantville Community Garden
Description: See Chapter 4, Section 1, "Soil Maintenance."
These resources offer some suggestions about tools and other supplies needed by the average community garden, including low-cost ways to obtain them. Convenient access to water is essential. NOTE re hoses: Look for hoses labeled "drinking water safe" if they are to be used to water edible plants (as opposed to ornamental flowers etc.).
Title: Ten Tools Every Community Gardener & Garden Needs
Sponsoring Organization: American Community Gardening Association
Description: Short PDF listing useful tools.
Title: Pleasantville Community Garden Guide: Building a Garden
Sponsoring Organization: Pleasantville Community Garden
Description: See section 2, "Planning Out the Garden," subsections on Materials and Tools.
Title: Starting a Garden Project: On a Budget
Sponsoring Organization: Vermont Community Garden Network
Description: Offers some creative low- or no-cost ways to find the materials needed for your garden, including donated materials, in-kind support, upcycling, tool sharing, seed swaps, etc.
Once the garden is designed, you'll need to schedule the building and setup of the garden.
Title: Pleasantville Community Garden Guide: Building a Garden
Sponsoring Organization: Pleasantville Community Garden
Description: See Section 3, "Organizing Volunteers for Construction," and Section 4, "The Building Process."