Community Garden

A community garden is an area of land used for horticulture by more than one person, in either an organizing|organized or improvising|improvised way, either individualizing|individually or collectivising|collectively.

Around the [United States](United States), most gardens are organized around the allocation of plots within the garden to individuals, who are responsible for its cultivating|cultivation and harvesting|harvest, if applicable. Some, and most elsewhere in the world, are more collective: gardeners share the entire garden and plots, if used, are designed around function, not property.

In the United States, community gardens first developed as “worker gardens” in the [late 1800s](late 1800s) and were part of the neighborhoods built to house workers in areas that had been developed for industry. The gardens saw a resurgence during both [World War One](World War One) and [World War Two](World War Two) as a means of alleviating the stresses of a war economy. A third wave of community gardens coincided with the [Back to the Land Movement](Back to the Land Movement) of the 1970s that emerged in reaction to the [1973 Arab-Israeli War](1973 Arab-Israeli War) and the subsequent [1970s American Oil Crisis|American oil crisis](1970s American Oil Crisis|American oil crisis). The most recent wave of community gardens is, as of 2023-12-18, occurring in reaction to the [COVID-19 Pandemic](COVID-19 Pandemic).