Harvest Pierce County as a Model for Community Garden Programs: Analysis of a County- Level Collaborative Effort to Reduce Waste, Build Soil, and Connect to Community.

Abstract

Past community garden research focused on benefits without consideration of garden usage. However, garden usage has implied weight on benefits provided by gardens. The Harvest Pierce County Community Garden Program is integrated with municipal departments and provides material resources to assist gardeners. This inclusive program provides a controlled study program to assess usage of gardens by internal structural differences and socioeconomic differences of surrounding census tracts. A survey of this program found that larger gardens are used more intensively than smaller gardens; whereas the number and size of individual plots does not significantly predict how well a garden is used. While community gardens are well- distributed across communities of color the diversity of the census tract does not predict garden usage. Overall gardens are well-used across the program.