How to Make a Community Garden Bin (with free printable Checklist)

Everything you need to know to put together a Community Garden Bin!

It’s super exciting to join a community garden.  You head out with enthusiasm, excited to dig in (literally!) and start what is sure to be a fantastic season.  You start planting only to realize that you left your onion sets at home.  Bummer.  You keep working only to realize it’s hotter out than you realized.  And you forgot to bring a water bottle.  Gulp.  By the time you are ready to leave, your mouth feels like cotton.

Ever get to your community garden only to realize you forgot something you need?  It’s sure different than gardening at home where you just run into the house or garage and grab whatever you’re missing.

For us, a forgotten item means a twenty minute drive back home…not worth it.

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I found two things that help with this problem –

1. A Community Garden Bin

We have a designated bin that always goes with us to the garden.  We started out with a cardboard box…  Duh, cardboard get’s wet when you water your garden (and the seeds in it get wet too!).  Double ug.  The other problem was that we could never find anything in the box, so I’d end up dumping everything out on the ground next to the garden.  It just didn’t work out well.

I had a hard time finding something that would fit our needs.  I really wanted something that could hold all of our odd items but still keep everything organized.  Finally, I found a solution; this portable bin.

It’s perfect because it has wheels and a handle, it’s sturdy, and it has some smaller organizational spots to sort all the smaller stuff (no more dumping everything out on the ground!).

Some items always stay in our community garden bin (work gloves, seeds, garden plans, etc.) but some items need to be removed and replaced each trip.  For those items that need to be replaced, I made a erasable checklist.

2. Having a “go to” Community Garden checklist totally helped to eliminate the last minute scramble when leaving home and ensures that we are always prepared to garden successfully.

After all, we wanted it to be fun, not stressful!  To give you an idea of what is sometimes needed at a community garden, I’ll include a list of what’s on our checklist below.

Items that should always stay in the bin:

Sunscreen

Kneeling pad

Seeds

Garden Plan

Markers

Sharpie

Hand Trowel

Weed puller

Gloves

Fertilizer (our favorite is this one – It’s natural, pretty cheap and works amazingly!)

bags, basket, or bucket for harvesting

Biodegradable soap (for washing hands in the garden)

Towel

Outdoor Blanket (for kids when they are tired)

Insect repellent

Items that need to be added:

New seedlings or seeds

Hat

Water Bottle (w/ice!)

Snack

Lightweight Jacket

Free Printable Checklist

I made a cute printable Community Garden Checklist.  It’s available (absolutely free!) below.

I printed it off, filled in the “items” and slid it into a page protector.  That way my kids can take a dry erase marker and mark off items to make sure we are ready to go.  It’s their responsibility to make sure we have everything we need along (but giving them a checklist ensures that they can handle it!).  It’s a great way to teach them some responsibility!

Get your free Community Garden Bin Checklist printable here!