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Cooperative Extension: School & Community Gardening

Community Gardening

Community Gardening Resources

Community Gardening

A community garden is typically one piece of land, gardened collectively by a group of people. Increasingly, community gardeners are “urban-dwellers with limited access to their own land”. Community beautification and revitalization, food security, physical activity and improved nutrition are just some of the benefits of community gardens.

Community garden

Starting a Community Garden

Organization and management are critical to successful community gardens. Whether you are starting a community garden with neighbors, a non-profit group, church or at work, successful gardens typically have a core group of at least ten individuals or families to help divide the many responsibilities a garden brings.

Here are a few resources to help manage your community garden:

Community Gardening Toolkit: A Resource for planning, enhancing and sustaining your community gardening project (University of Missouri Extension)

The Clemson Extension Home and Garden Information

Center American Community Gardening Association

EPA 542-F-10-011 “Reusing Potentially Contaminated Landscapes: Growing Gardens in Urban Soils”

Best Practices for the Sustainable Urban Farm

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Group posing in community garden

Cultivating Communities

In this introductory horticulture course, community gardeners will learn the necessary knowledge and skills to create and sustain a successful garden.  Each activity presented in the course leads to actionable steps to creating and sustaining a successful community-based garden.

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Clemson Extension TEACH Center at the Citadel Mall
Clemson Extension TEACH Center at the Citadel Mall | 2070 Sam Rittenberg Blvd. C412 Charleston, SC 29407