Jama, Sounds like you've been doing some great work in Durango! As someone who has worked with grassroots garden development, that does seem like a lot of money to me too, but maybe folks in Seattle or other places where community gardens are regularly funded by the Parks Department would have a different perspective on this. Over the years, we have invested that kind of money into some of the gardens as they've developed incrementally. It seems that for 250,000, the garden would be able to build a shed and greenhouse out of sustainable materials (straw bale, for example), a bathroom, raised beds, ADA accessible pathways, irrigation systems, multi-use features, and fund a local artist to install creative fences, wall mosaics or other garden features. All appealing ideas. If the garden was able to fund a paid staff to fund-raise, manage the space and develop programming, this could also be a case of money well invested.
Cheers, Susan Susan Finlayson Graduate Group in Horticulture and Agronomy University of California, Davis [email protected] ________________________________ From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 7:56:00 AM Subject: [Community_garden] start up costs Good morning fellow gardeners! I'm new to the list, and no doubt this is a recurring subject. But I haven't seen it run by yet. We are finishing our 8th year of community, communal gardening. We started up with $3,000 to support a pump and irrigation system, growing structures (such as tomato and cucumber fencing), and various supplies. We were fortunated to begin with a piece of exterior-fenced land - a little over 1 acre. Our garden is on private, rural property. A new garden of similar size has been proposed in a residential area, seeking public and private funds to the tune of $250,000, NOT including the land. That price tag astonished me - but I have nothing else to compare to but our own low-budget operation. Can you direct me to resources that put start-up costs in some sort of perspective? Sometimes we are taken back by the cost of our own produce, even on a relatively low annual operating budget (another $3K per year). We use the expression "very expensive tomato" to describe the lengths we will go to for mature produce at 7,200 feet. We aren't at all opposed to the new garden - the more gardens the better. Just curious whether that sort of investment could become a "standard" that makes low-budget neighborhood start-ups unlikely to obtain local government approval. Jama Durango Colorado _______________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20090924/38aaccdf/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org
