How it works
Communipi does one thing: it introduces someone with unused outdoor space to someone who wants to grow food. Everything below is the detail of that.
If you have the garden
You describe the patch
Where it is, roughly how big, how much sun it gets, whether there is a tap. Five short steps, and you can save a draft halfway through.
You choose an address from a search and then drag the pin onto the actual plot. Only you can see that exact spot; everyone else sees a point a few hundred metres out.
Gardeners come to you
We suggest gardeners near enough to actually turn up, weighted by how much their growing list overlaps with what you would like to see in the ground.
You can invite someone directly, or wait for a request. Either way you see who they are and what they are proposing before you say yes.
If you want to garden
You say how far you will go
Pick a centre point and a radius you would genuinely travel on a Saturday morning. Everything you see is inside it.
Tell us what you want to grow. That is what most matches turn on: a person who wants tomatoes and an owner who wants tomatoes is a much better pairing than two strangers who happen to live close.
You get somewhere to grow
Ask to garden anywhere that appeals, with a message and a suggestion of how it could work. Most people say yes to a friendly hello.
Once the terms are agreed you get the exact address, a shared timeline for photos, and a planner for the year.
The whole agreement
Two questions. You negotiate them per match, you can change them later, and either of you can end the arrangement at any time without giving a reason.
1. What happens to the harvest?
- Gardener keeps it all — Whoever does the digging takes the produce home.
- Split down the middle — Roughly half each, sorted out as things ripen.
- Owner gets a share — A basket back to the house in return for the space.
- Donate the surplus — Take what you need, the rest goes to a food project.
2. Who sorts out the tools?
- Owner provides tools — There is a shed and you are welcome to what is in it.
- Gardener brings tools — Bring your own spade; nothing is provided.
- A bit of both — Some kit on site, bring anything specialised.
That is deliberately it. Anything more complicated belongs in a conversation between two people, not in a form.
What we do about safety
- Addresses are gated. The exact location of a garden is only readable by its owner and an active collaborator. This is enforced in the database, not just in the interface.
- Photos are scrubbed. Phone photos carry GPS coordinates. Every upload is re-encoded and stripped of metadata before it is stored.
- Blocking cuts contact immediately. A blocked person cannot message you, request your garden, or appear in your matches. You can also report anything to a moderator.
- Meet outside first if you want to. Nothing about Communipi requires you to hand over keys, and nobody gets your address before you have agreed to work with them.