The Virtues of Community Gardens

Holding a seed in your hand one day and seeing it, months later, as a beautiful, healthy plant is a powerful and life-affirming metaphor. As well, the process of nurturing a seed into a plant has many benefits: digging in the dirt is good for our immune and nervous systems, and gardening both connects us to the earth and is great exercise. Yet, if you rent your home or live in a city where there is not enough room for a garden (or a combination of both), gardening on a regular basis gets challenging.

This is where community gardens come in. Many towns and cities have them, and they are a source of local, fresh, and oftentimes organic produce for food banks, hospices, and neighborhood residents. Other benefits of community gardens include:

• Community bonding
• Reducing the distance required to transport nutritious food to underserved communities
• Helping to improve air and soil quality (organic and regenerative growing practices sequester carbon dioxide and provide oxygen)
• Increasing biodiversity of plants and animals
• Improvement of water filtration, as many plants help clean the soil 
• Potential reduction of neighborhood waste through composting 
• Positively impacting the urban microclimate 
• Improving food security
• Increasing physical activity for community members
• Improving dietary habits through education and access
• Improving mental health and promoting relaxation 

Community gardens have a rich history of bringing people together and providing communities with healthy, vital food in difficult times. During WWII, for example, victory gardens were crucial for many Americans. Recently, there has been a resurgence of community gardens to help mitigate the impacts of food deserts and as a positive use for urban plots of land that have no other use. 

The significance of community gardening is near and dear to our hearts. We rely on certain plants to fuel our formulations with their intelligence and efficacy. In our experience, connecting with the plant world through gardening gives us a better understanding of our symbiotic and life-sustaining relationship with these miraculous beings. 

A quick google search will help you locate your nearest community garden and the volunteer opportunities it provides. (If there isn’t one in your area, there is always an opportunity to begin one yourself!)  After you spend a few hours working hard in the garden, don’t forget to nurture yourself with our organic and botanical-rich skincare — after all, to serve others sustainably, it’s necessary to take good care of yourself  first.