Gardening is an interesting and productive sport. Imagine growing much of what you consume as a sport. You may think that it gets your hands and clothes dirty, but there is much more to gardening than getting dirty.

There is so much joy when you are out there taking care of your plants and taking in the clean and fresh air. Imagine having crisp and fresh vegetables on your table, all harvested from your garden.

Having a garden solves many problems for you. You get healthier and fitter; you eat homegrown food and even offer some to your neighbors. The air around you gets purified, you receive plenty of sunshine and you never get bored or depressed as there is always some activity that requires your attention.

Even when gardening is fun, it is much more fun when you can get others to share in the fun with you. You can get your neighbors, your friends, and your children to share in the joy and fun of setting up a garden.

How joyful it can be when you share fruits, flowers, or vegetables from your garden! And guess what? You can even start a garden club. I doubt if there is one in your neighborhood. There aren’t many garden clubs; so starting one in your neighborhood will be a good idea.

In your garden club, you can get together with other gardeners like yourself to share ideas, information, gardening techniques and to share what experience you have gained with one another.

How to Get the Right Members for Your Club

To start your garden club, you need to reach out to the right members. It is good for it to be a club in which most members are gardeners. Go to other gardeners in your neighborhood and ask if they would like to be members of the garden club.

You will be surprised that you will find interested people in your neighborhood, place of work, family and relatives, and even people who you have not had close contact with before.

Planning the Take-off of Your Garden Club

After talking to a handful of interested people, you all need to meet and launch the start of your club. It can be in the daytime or evening, or on a weekend. Just set a time that will be suitable for everyone to attend.

Decide on what should be the objective of the first meeting. You can plan an activity like talking about gardening, exchanging different seeds and seedlings for planting, and setting up a discussion on what the goals and activities of the club should be.

You can take down all their contacts, so it will be easy to reach out to them and invite them to other meetings.

Creating Awareness about Your Club

You can design flyers and posters that will make your neighborhood aware of the new garden club in the area. You can even tell the new members to talk to their friends and neighbors and even invite someone along when attending the meeting.

Setting up the Organizational Structure of Your Club

Your new club needs to have an organizational structure. After the launch of the club, you can set another date when you will all meet to elect or appoint people into different positions in the club.

If there are just a few members, write out all the leadership positions, and ask each member to say which position he thinks he will be able to handle. Or, you can ask them to delegate one another into different positions.

You can also use questionnaires to find out your members’ areas of strengths and interests and use it to identify which position will be suitable for which member. Just make sure that all selected members have an interest in serving the club. Another way is to have the members contest for the various leadership positions.

Planning the Objectives of the Club

It is now time to plan on what will be the focus and objectives of the club. What will you all like to achieve in the club? You will need to set them in order of priority. You can also describe the kind of programs that will be set up in the club and how to get financing to run the club.

Have your goals and objectives all clearly written down and begin to set up a plan on how it should be achieved. You also need to have your club’s by-laws and constitution. If you will also like to be affiliated with some organization, you can reach out to the organization to set up the modalities.

Meeting Schedule

Having regular meetings is important to the success of your club. You and the other members of the club can decide on the most suitable time for you all to meet. You can decide to meet once a week, twice in a month, or once a month.

You will also need to decide on the most convenient day and time of the week to hold your meetings. The venue of the meeting also has to be decided. You may have your gardens as the venue for each of your meetings. Each meeting will have one of the club’s goals as an agenda to be worked on.

Other Needs of Your Club

It is important that your garden club should have a unique name. Consult the extension office in your area to make sure that the name you choose for your garden is not already taken. It is also necessary that your garden club should have a bank account.

If you will be accepting membership dues from your members, then you will need an account to save them. Sometimes you may be privileged to get donations from other sources. All monies for your club should be lodged in the account. Have a responsible treasurer that will be able to manage the club’s finances effectively.

Getting More People to Know about Your Garden Club

After starting your club, you need to get more members and strengthen the activities of your club. You need to give your club a lot of publicity. Invite friends, colleagues, and neighbors to your meetings.

Even if some of them have no gardens, they may be motivated to start one. Encourage your members to invite someone each time there is a meeting.

Make fliers and posters and place them around your community so you can create awareness about the club. Also, promote your gardens in schools, community centers, libraries, and other social gatherings.

Work together with an agricultural extension expert in your area and sometimes invite him to your meetings and get him to guide your members as they tend to their gardens. You can plant your crops at the same time as your members; organize harvest shows and be sure to invite other members of your community.

Conclusion

Apart from working in your garden for pleasure, you can find more pleasure when you set up a garden club where you can interact with other gardeners, benefit from each other, and also encourage one another. It will take months of hard work and planning before your garden finally bears fruits or vegetables. For every member, the benefits of the gardening club, exercise, fresh air, green surroundings, and the chance you build your gardening club and enjoy the taste of your leafy green, tomatoes that you grew, all the effort is really worthy.

I hope, you enjoy reading these articles and if you have any questions or something you can share about these articles, please leave your comments below and I’ll be happy to get back to you. Thank you so much and enjoy your gardening.