ABSTRACT
Community garden activists practices can also be seen as having internal movement building functions creating solidarity, network ties and oppositional consciousness in addition to addressing opponents and garnering public support. Gardening is a central part of the community gardening movement's approach to social change. Community gardeners draw on traditions of organic gardening, permaculture and collective management of community commons, and also reinterpret them in innovative ways. Community gardens do not exist in isolation, despite the impression that may be created by a singular focus on them. The benefits analyses that have dominated community garden scholarship have produced vital resources that have been useful to community gardeners as well as academics. In the community garden organisations, arts and cultural events such as festivals, rituals and exhibitions were important means of transmitting information and values. Operating at an affective level, these events used celebration, joy and playfulness to invite wider audiences to recognise and join in community gardener's work.
