Suburban Dirt: A Growing Element in New Jersey’s Community Gardening Trend

Large-scale community gardens are an increasingly common feature in the suburbs of Central New Jersey, and yet the inner-city model has essentially defined how we think of community gardening. Community gardens indicate where people are, and yet the literature bias towards urban community gardens neglects this growing trend of large non-urban community gardens. This study, therefore, investigates three large format suburban community gardens – gardens that consist of one hundred or more individual plots – that are removed from the urban setting. The questions that this research seeks to answer are: Who is participating in large-scale suburban community gardening, and what are their reasons for participation? In answering these questions, the intent is to also begin to understand the conditions of suburbia that foster the impetus for creation of such gardens. In order to understand the gardens spatially as they relate to their contextual surroundings, I used methods of geospatial mapping. To understand the gardens structurally as a place, I made use of on-site observation and conducted interviews with garden coordinators representing each site. In order to understand the garden in terms of the user group, I conducted a series of personal interviews with participating gardeners that focused heavil