This paper sheds critical light on the motivations and practices of community gardeners in relatively affluent neighbourhoods. The paper engages with community garden, alternative food and domestic garden literatures, to understand how people fit food production into their everyday lives, how they develop relationships to plants and how these in turn shape relations between people in a community group. The paper draws on participant observation and semi-structured walking interviews conducted at three community gardens in Sydney, Australia. The paper concludes that to fit community gardening into busy lives, people strategically choose plants with biophysical qualities that suit personal as well as communal circumstances and objectives. The paper shows how community is relationally constituted through the practices of growing and sharing food. Tensions might arise through the practices of growing food on communal and private plots and the taking and giving of food, but it can also encourage people to reflect on community food production and on their roles as individuals in a community group.

Community gardening is an increasingly popular phenomenon. Local governments wishing to 'green' the city and make the urban environment more 'inclusive' sometimes promote community gardening as a means to meet policy goals. Scholars from various fields have been keen to focus on these positive promises of community gardening. However, community gardens are not inherently different from their surroundings or good in themselves as they are connected to wider urban landscapes and routines through practice. Building on empirical research that I conducted at three community gardens in Sydney, Australia, I reveal how property is practised in three gardens with different property models, focussing on three practices -transplanting, plotting and fencing. I show that community gardeners produce property relationally and that through each of these practices, they create overlapping understandings of common and private property. Gardeners have contradictory motivations that are geared both towards community inclusion and the protection of personal interests. The paper reveals that while feelings of ownership contribute to a sense of community belonging, they also help legitimatise a defensive and exclusive spatial claim. Community gardening is an increasingly popular phenomenon. Local governments wishing 6 to 'green' the city and make the urban environment more 'inclusive' sometimes promote 7 community gardening as a means to meet policy goals. Scholars from various fields have 8 been keen to focus on these positive promises of community gardening. However, 9 community gardens are not inherently different from their surroundings or good in 10 themselves as they are connected to wider urban landscapes and routines through practice. Disciplines Education | Social and Behavioral Sciences 11Building on empirical research that I conducted at three community gardens in Sydney, 12Australia, I reveal how property is practised in three gardens with different property models, 13focussing on three practices -transplanting, plotting and fencing. I show that community 14 gardeners produce property relationally and that through each of these practices they create 15 overlapping understandings of common and private property. Gardeners have contradictory 16 motivations that are geared both towards community inclusion and the protection of personal

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