Wicklow Communal Gardens

Some examples of good communal gardening include the Aughrim community gardening project started in January 2009 to encourage and motivate people to grow their own fruit and vegetables using organic gardening principles. Local people avail of communal space to grow food or to take an individual plot and use the shared gardening tools, gardening books, or use the poly-tunnel to grow seedlings or winter vegetables. Experienced gardeners are invited to join and share their expertise and give advice to the novice gardeners, all are welcome. New families are encouraged to join and share the fun in a social community setting, getting to know neighbours, while learning a practical skill, producing healthy organic food and enhancing the local environment.

Wicklow Communal Gardens

Wicklow Communal Gardens is one of the pilot projects for the Greening Communities Award.

Wicklow Communal Gardens

Wicklow Communal Gardens

Wicklow Communal Gardens is one of the pilot projects for the Greening Communities Award.

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Festine Lente in Bray, which is a centre for people with disabilities that provides training in horse riding and care as well as organic gardening and have a formal garden open to the public, provide allotment space to community groups and individuals and provide gardening training courses.

Gleann Chille is a local authority estate in Glenealy village where the residents have developed a community vegetable plot on corner of their green space at the back of the houses. They have managed to produce a wide variety and volume of vegetables and fruit in the last two years.

The programme aim is to promote the idea of communal gardening – community garden style, allotments or grow your own groups with residents associations, local authority and private and with tidy towns groups. As part of this the provision of training and ‘get together’ sessions, it is proposed to evaluate awareness levels before and during the pilot period to assess awareness of a number of environmental issues. The training would include organic gardening, energy, waste and water management in the home and garden and promotion of GreenHome and Green Communities programmes.