community asset mapping

Draw maps of the neighborhood as we know it. Our homes, landmarks (parks, businesses, etc), major roads, as well as sites where we are working to improve the environment (gardens, tree beds, etc) and sites where we have environmental concerns (brownfields, active industry and infrastructure).

goal setting & choosing how to track our progress

Choosing which of our goals we want to measure progress towards, and choosing how to do the measuring.

Design the measuring process as an activity (or activities) that many people in the garden can participate in.

first measuring day

Add in measuring activities to your normal routine in the garden. Depending on which goals you are aiming to track, this could be:

• weighing all of the day's harvest.
• marking bucketfuls of incoming organic waste that you are diverting from the landfill.
• assigning task cards to gardeners, then collecting them at the end of the day to add up how many hours were dedicated to the garden.
• etc

field day 1: pole aerial mapping

Schedule this event for a critical time in the garden, perhaps at the height of the growing season.

infrared bed by bed

If you are testing different cultivation regimes on a crop, set a "photo stand" where you can put your infrared camera and take pictures from the same place through time.

last field day

• after the garden is put away for the winter, make another aerial photo map for use over the winter planning next season.