[This followup was posted to rec.gardens.edible and a copy was sent to
the cited author.]

In article 9e6598d5-dd65-4fd3-8b60-595cee845ca8
@i18g2000prf.googlegroups.com, says...
Dear Gardening Community,
My name is Joshua Patterson I am posting this message to let you know
about a program I am trying to get started in Portland, Oregon.
Its called Yard Sharing. We all have that strip of grass between the
street and the sidewalk or that patch of grass we always neglect on
the side or in the back of our yard. Maybe your neglected space is in
your front yard.
Here in Portland our community gardens are overwhelmed with people. We
have too many people who want to have a garden and not enough space.
So I have gotten the idea of sharing yards with people who want or
need food producing gardens.
I have created a website where people can post spaces available or
people can post that they would like to create a garden. Its free I
will never charge to post or view or anything like that. I am just
trying to build a sustainable community and find a good way to allow
people to grow their own food.
Please check out our website at http://www.yardsharing.org and let us
know what you think. If you have ideas about how we can make this
program grow please let us know..

Joshua Patterson



I'd suggest you work out some kind of contract that clearly delineates
responsibility and who has to pay for irrigation, clean-up, etc. and how
much for a season.

Things like this look very good at first blush but without some kind of
formalized arrangement between owners, the city, etc. it could turn into
a real mess. --With issues of insurance, it may already be a real mess
waiting to be turned over. What about ownership of the produce in the
case of a dispute?

Curbside gardens of any kind are currently illegal in London Ontario
Canada. --It may be different in Portland, but growing corn at the
curbside, for instance, would probably be considered a traffic hazard
just about anywhere.

Finally, such as it is, the public garden system here is subject to a
fair bit of theft. How are you going to account for theft from what is
clearly considered common land for common use? That is, anything and
everything at curbside is divorced from an owner and therefore fair
game, for all. Then there's vandalism.