3. Results
Fifteen of the 20 programs surveyed maintained
only one community garden each, two programs main-
tained 2±3 gardens each, and three programs main-
tained 13±14 gardens each. Table 1 shows selected
characteristics of the 20 community garden programs
surveyed, as reported by the program coordinators.
Five programs were located in rural areas and 15 pro-
grams were located in urban and suburban areas.
Most of the programs (90%) had less than 200 garden-
ers participating; the larger programs, with greater
numbers of participating gardeners, were located in
urban areas. All of the community garden programs
that were located in rural areas were operated with the
support of at least one paid sta. One of the rural pro-
grams and four of the urban programs were operated
by Cooperative Extension, the remaining were oper-
ated by private organizations. One half of the pro-
grams reported having 10 or more regular volunteers
helping with the operation of their program, one half
of the programs distributed a regular program newslet-
ter. In addition, 90% of the programs provided techni-
cal support to individual gardeners, 30% provided
educational classes, 80% provided soil tilling to gar-
deners, and 55% provided seeds and seedlings (data
not shown).
Less than one half of the programs had soil testing
performed (40%), which would identify garden sites in
their programs that had contaminated soil, for
example, with heavy metals. Almost one half of the
programs in urban areas had testing performed (47%).
Among the eight programs that had testing performed,
only urban programs reported soil contamination, for
example, with lead, cadmium and organochlorides (e.g.
PCBs).
Dierences in the underlying philosophies and goals
of community garden programs, as well as surrounding
environmental and social conditions, were revealed by
rules on chemical use and the sale of produce and by
fencing of community gardens. Overall, 60% of the
programs either prohibited the use of any chemicals or
allowed only chemical fertilizers to be used in gardens.
However, 60% of rural programs compared with 33%
of urban programs allowed the use of chemical herbi-
cides and insecticides, which also may re¯ect greater
diculty with garden pest control in rural areas. In ad-
dition, none of the programs in rural areas fenced
their gardens; furthermore, none of these rural pro-
grams reported diculties with vandalism of the gar-
dens (with the exception of limited vandalism by
youths). In urban areas, 67% of programs fenced their
gardens. However, approx. one half of the urban pro-
grams reported problems with vandalism, with no
dierences in the report of vandalism between pro-
grams that did and did not fence their gardens. One