Community Garden Resources

Sample Club Constitution Guide – a free PDF to help you set up your garden as a club.

Sample Short Lease Template – a free PDF guide

Insurance: We can’t as yet offer group insurance but there are several companies in Ireland that do so. BHP, Marsh Ireland and FBD are currently popular Depending on the number of public events you hold it can range from €250/€300 per year upwards for Public Liability Insurance.

Promote Your Community Garden – a useful guide from Social Farms and Gardens.

Health and Safety in your community garden – a checklist from Social Farms and Gardens.

Setting up a Club in Ireland – what you need to know from Citizens Advice.

Example of a Community Garden Membership Form and Handbook from Muck & Magic Community Garden, Ballymun, Dublin

A Guide for Design & Implementation of Community Gardens & Allotments – this guide was created for Carlow County Council but can also apply to other local authorities across Ireland.

Start Up Guides and Advice

If you’re looking for advice or information about community gardening in Ireland, please see below:

Start Up Essentials and advice for Community Gardens – a checklist of things to consider if you’re thinking of starting up a community garden. Dee Sewell, an experienced community garden educator, has written several articles about community gardening on her award-winning blog at Greenside Up.

The Organic Centre – Growing with Confidence – a useful guide from The Organic Centre in Leitrim

Dublin City Guide to Community Gardening – a free downloadable guide

Healthy Food for All – Good Practice Guide Section A – offers advice on how to set up and manage a Community Food Initiative, including understanding nutritional guidelines, food policy, funding, budgeting, staffing and evaluations.

Healthy Food for All Good Practice Guide Section B – profiles examples of good practice in Community Food Initiatives (CFI) and will offer advice on how to run a specific CFI from Community Cafés to nutrition education and training programmes.

LYCS Community Development  ‘Connecting Communities: A Practical Guide to using Development Education in Community Settings’ is a  free LYCS resource for facilitators or tutors working with groups in Community Education and Community Development contexts.

Engaging with Nature – An excellent resource from Paddy Madden, Eamon O’Murchu and Des Murtagh with videos and monthly updates.

Dee Sewell of Greenside Up and Joanne Butler of OURganic Gardens have collaborated to create a series of workshops to help people get their community gardens up and running. For more information on their full day or six week, weekly workshops, contact them at ourgreengardencourse@gmail.com 

School Community Gardening

If you’re interested in school gardening we have found some additional resources to help you get started. First up, Sara Plumier published a blog for us about the Importance of School Gardening. You can read it here. 

Incredible Edibles is a healthy initiative for primary school children. Schools are supplied with grow packs containing everything they need to grow a veritable feast of healthy foods! You can download curriculum linked activity sheets, log book, a growing planner and also find growing videos to help you get set up. Everything that’s needed to learn about where food comes from and the importance of fruit, vegetables and potatoes is also available to download. 

Healthy Food for All which sadly now, no longer exists, published a series of resources to help start up food growing, including this Good Practice Guide for School Garden Initiatives.

Irish Seed Savers Association is inviting primary & secondary school students to join them, as they explore exciting, practical, hands on and interactive workshops on their 20-acre working farm. The also sell copies of The Year Round Organic School Garden which is a fantastic resource.

SEED School Earth Education is a national network of educational centres and professionals with many years experience in Primary and Post Primary environmental education, specialising in all aspects of organic school gardening. They offer a range of services for schools and teachers including training materials and literature, teacher training courses, advice on grants and funding, and practical gardening sessions with children.

Green Schools Ireland have published resources for a ‘Growing Change’ about designing a school garden. You can find the link here. It includes tips and advice for designing edible forest gardens

The Importance of School Gardens as a Community

Additonal Resources

All-Ireland Pollinator Plan from the Biodiversity Centre

Child Protection Training – Children First Training from TUSLA. Where to go, who to talk to.

Garda Vetting for more information contact your local Volunteer Centre for an application form and/or advice.

Community Garden Guidelines – if you’re looking for a template of guidelines, this PDF that you might like to adapt has been written for a larger community garden.

Global Action Plan Ireland: New research published ahead of ‘National Allotments and Community Gardens Week 2023’ underlined the critical importance of green spaces for urban communities

1 thought on “Community Garden Resources

  1. The INTO’s In Touch magazine published month by month, class by class articles on school gardening during the academic year 2021-2022. Current issues of the magazine are exploring biodiversity in school month by month. All available online at into.ie/media-centre/publications/intouch/ The website http://www.engagewithnature.ie has a lot of information on school gardening and nature. The book Go Wild at School available from the Tree Council of Ireland deals with sustainable and nature- friendly school grounds and gardening.

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