Ten Tips For Sharing Gardens to Grow Fruit and Vegetables
If you are thinking about allowing someone to grow fruit vegetables in your garden, here are 10 tips for a successful sharing arrangement.
1. Make sure there is a water source, if there isn’t one, you will need to provide one.
2. Work out where the composter will be located and what is to be done with non-compostable rubbish.
3. Ensure there is reasonable access to the vegetable plot. Can a car be parked nearby? If there is more than one access route, can they all be used?
4. Decide the times of the day and days of the week when the gardener can have access
5. Agree exactly who other than the gardener is allowed on the vegetable plot.
6. Establish how long the arrangement lasts. Don’t go over a year, but the gardener will need the whole season. 364 days may be the answer.
7. Agree the rent or amount of fruit and vegetables in kind, A quarter to a third seems to be a popular proportion.
8. Determine any favorite fruit and vegetable that must be grown.
9. Can the gardener have a bonfire? Maybe. Or hold a BBQ and invite some friends around? Probably not!
10. Finally, and most importantly of all, write down whatever you both agree and both sign it.
These points, and a few more, are covered in more detail in yours2share’s guidance. For me point 8 is particularly pertinent and easily forgotten. If I was a landowner, I’d want to make sure I was going to get rhubarb, raspberries and sweet peas at some point in the year!
