Creating a Faith Based Community Garden – Suggested Resources

Here in the Pacific NW, it is time to get out into the garden and start planning, planting and enjoying.  Not surprisingly I am deep into every catalogue and new book I can find on gardening.  And this year there are lots of them because every man and his dog seems to have joined the community garden frenzy.  I am delighted to see new gardens springing up all over and new resources constantly becoming available so I thought that it was time to expand and update the list.

I am also getting ready for our annual  Spirituality and Gardening seminar. The increasing popularity of this topic makes me realize how much others crave the same kind of connections between their faith and the world around them. As I always say in these seminars: In the Bible I read about the death and resurrection of Christ, in the garden I experience it. In the Bible I read about the abundance of God’s provision, in the garden I experience. The story of God is constantly being lived out God’s world, affirming who God is and who God intends us to be. 

Like me many urban dwellers have discovered the joys of vegetable gardening in the last few years and in the process have grown in their intimacy with God. Hopefully, they start small and then as their taste buds explode with the delight of vegetables straight from the garden something strange happens and they become obsessive about converting their lawn into edible vegetation.  There is nothing quite like the wonderful sweet flavour of tomatoes picked straight from the vine or of corn that has gone straight from plant to the pot.  And to experience the delight of leeks and carrots that have been dragged out of the frosty ground is out of this world.

Why has it taken us so long to discover what people in most other parts of the world have always known – store bought food just doesn’t taste real even when it is organic and “picked from the vine”.   Even a friend of ours who is a well known celebrity chef has just discovered in his 70s that food grown in your own backyard is better than any restaurant gourmet meal.

There are many other benefits to growing your own food too. Working in the garden gets us outside into God’s good creation.  As I mentioned in a previous post on nature deficit disorder, I don’t think that we realize the consequences to our health – both physical and spiritual of lives that are spent inside under artificial light.  Insomina, depression, and of course obesity are all linked to sedentary indoor lives.

This is a much more complete list than I posted last year and adds a few not included in our best selling resource To Garden with God.  If there are other resources you would recommend please add them as comments below .

Resources for Creating a Faith Based Community Garden

Here in Seattle we have a number of amazing resources available that are applicable to other parts of the U.S and even around the world.

Seattle Public Utilities Natural Lawn and Garden Care provides a variety of downloadable resources including:

• Smart Watering
• Rainwater Harvesting
• Growing Healthy Soil
• Natural Pest Weed and Disease Control

Seattle Tilth  is a must contact organization.

• Their educational classes are superb.
• if you are wanting to start a garden the Just Garden project in Seattle is the place to begin,
• The garden hotline is also there to answer your questions.

Montgomery Victory Gardens: Tips for Starting a Faith Based Community Garden

American Community Gardening Association has great advice on community garden basics. 

The University of Missouri has an excellent resource Community Gardening Toolkit

North Carolina State University Community Gardens has another excellent resource: Eat Smart, Move More North Carolina: Growing Communities Through Gardens

From Union of British Columbia Municipalities Dig it – A Practical Toolkit for Governments to Support Community Gardens

Garden planning

• Plan Garden – a web based garden planning site
• Gardener’s Supply Kitchen Garden Planning – a great tool for planning a garden based on the square foot garden method
• Mother Earth also has a slightly more sophisticated garden planner.

Organic Gardening

Organic Gardening 101 
Organic Gardening advice from Mother Earth 
Check out groworganic.com’s you tube channel for a wonderful selection of videos on organic gardening

Share your food

Lettuce links:  here in the Pacific NW helps connects those that garden with those who need it.
Ample Harvest helps connect in different parts of the country.

Some of my favourite blogs on food and faith:

• Sparks in the Soil
• Five Loaves Farm
• Sustainable Traditions
• Faith & Food: Biblical Perspectives (United Methodist Church)
• Food and Faith blog (Presbyterian Hunger program)
• I also like this list of 10 great garden blogs
• And a lost from the UK

Some resources from my friends at ARocha Canada

• City of Vancouver has  an extensive list of resources, links, etc. for community gardening in B.C..
• City Farmer www.cityfarmer.org: a veritable treasure trove of information on all manner of urban agriculture information

And from Matt Freer in England

• Grow Zones – a community growing resource started by Earth Abbey in the UK, that brings people together locally to help one another grow fruit and vegetables in their own gardens. Participants are supported by the Grow Zones Kit, which is designed to make the prospect of growing fruit and vegetables a less burdensome, more enjoyable prospect and overcome the obstacles to ‘growing your own’.

As well as my own book To Garden with God, you may also find the following books on spirituality and gardening helpful

•  Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating by Norman Wirzba
• Planted: A Story of Creation, Calling and Community by Leah Kostamo
• Farming as a spiritual discipline
• The art of the commonplace: The agrarian essays of Wendell Berry
• Craig Goodwin: Year of Plenty
• Brother Victor-Antoine d’Avila-Latourrette, A Monastic Year: reflections From  Monastery
• Vigen Guroian: Inheriting Paradise: Meditations on Gardening
• Wendy Johnson: Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate: At Work in the Wild and Cultivated World
• The “Spirituality and Practice” website also has a list of resources (including books, DVDs, poetry, and quotes) on spirituality and gardening.
• There is also a great list of books on food and faith from our friends at Hearts and Minds books. including my favorites: Making Peace with the Land: God’s Call to Reconcile with Creation by Fred Banson and Norman Wirzba and A Year of Plenty by Craig Goodwin

Resources-Curricula for Churches / Faith communities

• Just Eating? (Presbyterian Church USA curriculum for middle schoolers and adults)
•  Congregational Tool Kit – Land Stewardship Project . This kit contains videos, resource materials and activities for small and large group gatherings with a focus on building healthy communities by linking people with their food, the land and each other.
• Let’s Move Faith and Communities launched by Michelle Obama provides some excellent resources includingthis toolkit which contains good basic information on community gardening
• The US Department of Agriculture also has some helpful resources available including this start up community garden guide
• Master gardener programs which exist throughout US and Canada are a great resource for volunteers, advice and expertise.  I heartily recommend contacting your local branch to see if there is a volunteer who might assist your garden’s development.
• Harry Wyman from the Peace Tree Community in Perth has started a global permaculture network.  I love the concept of permaculture and hope that we will be able to implement many of its principles in our garden at the Mustard Seed Village