The Bismarck Park Board approved creating community gardens, allowing those with a green thumb but no place to plant the opportunity to have their very own little plot to tend to for a small fee.

The board provided property adjacent to the Bismarck Municipal Ball Park for the gardens at Thursday's meeting.

The park district will also supply water for gardens located just west of the ball diamonds near the intersection of Front Avenue and Washington Street.

In March, the Missouri Valley Resource Council held a public meeting to determine if there was any interest in having community gardens.

Ken Morrow was one of two individuals who agreed to form a small group to administer the gardens.

Morrow, an attorney and self-described avid gardner, said that other communities in North Dakota have had community gardens for years and had met with great success.

There will be about seven 10-foot-by-10-foot plots available at a per plot rental fee of $25, plus a $20 refundable deposit when the season was over and the plot was suitably cleaned up.

Park district director Steve Neu said that Bismarck did have community gardens many years ago south of the Tatley Park area. He said that the property in question was not a long term commitment should the district decide to develop it for some other project.

"The basic philosophy is that community gardens are a gathering place, a social experience," Neu said. "It won't be fences and once in awhile you'll have some vandalism. But for the most part people respect the gardens and it's a self-governing operation. It becomes its own operating entity."

This area was chosen because of its central location, according to Morrow. Hopes are that eventually other community gardens open to the public will be created throughout the Bismarck area.

"It's designed for people who don't have access to a garden. Those people who like to garden but just don't have the space," Morrow said.

The administrative group will put together guidelines on how the gardens are to taken care of and perhaps some restrictions on what can be planted.

Plans are to have the gardens available this year. For more information, or to rent a plot, call Morrow at 255-1344.

(Contact reporter Gordon Weixel at 250-8255 or gordon.weixel@;bismarcktribune.com.)