If you count transportation and other costs, it seems to me that it might be much more financially practical for people to donate directly to their nearest community garden. If you are thinking more of botanical gardens/arboretums/and gardens of that nature, most of them would prefer to choose their own plants anyway. Many public gardens of that nature shy away from plant donations and prefer financial contributions or prearranged/requested donations.

If you are able to grow a type of plant that is somewhat rare or hard to grow (at least in their early stage) in other parts of the country, that might be more useful to public gardens. For instance if you could propagate rare cycads or rare palms that were hardy enough to grow in other regions, I bet you could find a demand for those.

Concentration on a small number of plant types would likely be much more effective (although maybe not as much fun to do).

I think your idea is great. I only recently started gardening and now I see all these areas around our city where vegetables could be grown that would benefit those less fortunate! Being in Florida myself, think of all the citrus trees that could be in the parks where the bums sleep. At least they would have some of those to eat!

It would even be beneficial for those benefiting from the vegetables to work in the growing of them. Of course these are my utopian ideas and if I ran the world there would be no problems (ha ha)!

I don't have the time to start a community garden myself, but I could easily send some extra seeds that I have. Let me know an address and I'll send them along.

Hi There,
For the last 3 years, I have been doing just that. I started Need 4 Seed, and have been accepting seed donations, packaging them, and shipping out enough seeds for a whole garden to those in need. I have mailed out extras of my own plants as well. I intend to make this a non-profit; that way, I can receive donations from seed companies to distribute to folks who could use the help. Maybe we could combine our efforts, and you could handle the live plants!

I think that's a great idea. Look at all the veggie seeds that people get and don't plant them. I'm always sending the ones I don't use to someone who does. If I had the room I'd plant everything possible but...my yard is just not big enough.. I'd be happy to send left over seed donations. Happy gardening. Bev