I was once a community gardener, 'Tiger.
It was fun to have the company. The parks department paid almost no attention to us. Sometimes, that made me a little uncomfortable as folks took things in their own hands. We were fortunate to involve a university group in cleanups on 2 occasions.
Storage yards were nearby. I finally asked about wood chips and hauled some down the hill for all my paths.
A near "wild-state" park was next door. That led to some two-legged theft but the bigger problem was the 4-legged critters. Deer only showed up once but that nearly took out my tomatoes for that year. A great big problem was the marmots.
You might know, groundhogs are Marmota monax.
Marmots are Marmota caligata. They are bigger than groundhogs but, I imagine, cause the same trouble. We were allowed to set up fences but not even to "harass" them

. Only for a few months would a well-tended fence work; then they would find a way into our gardens. In the 6 years I was there, I personally trained them to eat any number of garden vegetables ...
Mostly tho', we had a pretty good time and a fair amount of good food from the experience

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Steve