I Need Your Help

I have a knack for having a million projects going on at one time.  I’m still trying to help my brother out with a plan for his house, and my little sister in Georgia wants to somehow have a garden too even though she is in an apartment so stay tuned because I will be posting a bunch of ideas for her type of situation pretty soon.

AND I’m currently working on drawing up a proposal for my Homeowners Association for a community garden using about 18 acres that our HOA owns behind our community.  Currently it is just pasture that we have leased out to a local farmer for his cows.   The city has expressed interest in purchasing it for a soccer park or other type of park but a lot of our homeowners who back up to it aren’t too happy with the idea.

Here is where I need your help.  I would love to hear from anyone with actual experience with a community garden~whether that is just participating in one or actually running one.  What I want to do is present a complete proposal to the association with estimated costs to get it started, proposed design layouts, policies and procedures, solutions and ideas for water issues and proposed membership fees etc.  Please let me know what has worked for you, or things you think would work better that I should consider.

I think if I put together a nice looking community garden presentation they might like it.  I think visuals will be key so that people can visualize how it will look, so if you have pictures or can point to me to some lovely examples of  community gardens I would love that too.

I’m also open to suggestions on books or other resources I should check into. It’s an exciting project and the more prepared I go in, the better chance I’ve got to get it going.