Would you like to learn how to garden better, help your neighbors learn the no dig technique and share garden produce with others? If so, try this simple fun idea to bring folks together:
- Notify your neighbors, by word of mouth or a simple flyer left in their mailbox or door, that you will be showing a 12 minute video on the no dig gardening technique on a certain date.
- After showing the video, you can go to someone’s property, where you will have gathered organic materials, and proceed to follow the steps to build a garden bed in approximately one hour. ( See written guide above)
- Sit down with your neighbors:
- Ask if anyone else wants/needs help building a no dig garden
- Promote the idea of sharing produce with each other. You can call each other when you have excess or it helps to develop a small group e mail list to share among yourselves. Then you can let neighbors know when you have excess veggies and suggest they come over and help themselves to a small amount.
Setting up a community organization which offers no dig workshops
It is our hope that community groups will use the following information to help them set up and run no dig gardening workshops. Bob Jones has done this successfully in Maine, Colorado and New Zealand as a project of Transition Towns www.transitionus.org. Transition Towns around the world are grass roots citizen organizations which are being set up to deal with the twin problems of peaking global oil production and climate change.
Benefits to the community and individuals of these workshops:
To the Community
- We use food scraps, leaves and grass clippings – less organic matter goes into landfills
- Revitalizes neighborhoods by providing a focus for individuals to work together
- Less dependence on food banks
- It has a multiplier effect as people often teach friends and neighbors this technique.
To Individuals
- Improves soil fertility and quality because food is grown in non–toxic soil
- This provides more nutritious food leading to better health and more vitality, which also lowers family medical bills
- Less money is spent on food and gas since there is less need for shopping for food
- Provides meaningful connections with people and the earth
- It teaches folks gardening skills which have often been lost
- These workshops help individuals gain confidence to garden themselves
- Individuals enjoy working with others in their community and sharing produce