Fredericton, meet the Landless Gardeners

This post is going to end by talking about building a community of local citizens. A networked group of people to have fun, share their experiences and knowledge about growing food in the city. One of the many purposes is to share efforts and create a welcoming atmosphere where people can learn while doing. The benefits--in terms of exercise, participation, nutritious food, friendships and fun--are all easy to talk about and important points.

But we are going to start by talking about our name.



Names can be important and we wanted ours to be informal, informative and relevant. We wanted to suggest two things when hearing it: That there is a number (we hope large) of people who want to grow food and that there is a shortage of land set aside for the purposes of growing food. With all of the land (lawn) space in the city, our thinking went, perhaps some people in the community would, if they thought the idea to be good, allow a portion of their lawn to be planted with food?

The basic setup we propose is:

1. Allow us a small plot of your front yard
2. At harvest time, you as provider of the land, get 10% of the food grown.

There is absolutely no requirement for the person who donates the land to do any of the gardening work although of course it is not prohibited!

What we provide is:

1. All of the materials and labour.
2. A rain barrel positioned under a down spout to collect water.
3. Beautiful vegetables!

Our hope at the end of the season is to have a block party where we cook the food and invite the neighborhood to celebrate with us a successful grow season. We want to have as much involvement of people as is practical. We are an all ages, all levels of experience group. We have people participating who have tended gardens their whole lives as well as those who are have never grown any type of plant at all! So if you walk by and see us at a plot and have suggestions, advice, or just want to check on what we are doing please feel free to stop and talk!

Of all the things we want to do -- have fun, grow food, learn skills, exercise -- it is the community of people that we hope will form and the friendships made that will last longer than any of the produce we grow.

For anyone curious about our plans or has an idea for us please contact us a landlessgardeners@gmail.com or post a comment on the blog.

Happy growing season,

the Landless Gardeners