The project would educate young people while giving something back to the community.
It would provide plants for the council's gardens and parks department and grow vegetables which would be given to the Oamaru foodbank and people in need.
Eventually, plots could be allotted to families and older people who wanted to grow vegetables.
Older people would act as mentors to the young.
Publicity on the proposal by Waitaki community safety officer Alison Banks to use about 4500sq m of land west of the Oamaru Public Gardens has drawn about a dozen offers of help.
The Waitaki District Council's community services committee yesterday recommended the site, which the council owns, be made available rent-free for the first year.
The location was favoured because the Waitaki Resource Recovery Trust, which would help run the project, operated its resource recovery park opposite on Chelmer St.
Mrs Banks wants the garden to be part of the Community Clean Up project which has operated since November 2006.
Young offenders who have committed minor offences such as vandalism, tagging, littering or other nuisance crimes are given tasks such as sweeping and waterblasting streets, picking up litter, removing glass, cleaning off graffiti and painting and repairing public property.
The project would be co-ordinated by the trust and Mrs Banks.
It would share the resources, space, expertise and social support of the trust and have links to police, the courts, community corrections, Child Youth and Family and Work and Income.
Other organisations such as churches, youth support groups, community groups and the Buddy programme could also be involved.
