This is less of a "help me!" post than a "whatcha think about this idea?" one. I remember taking many trips with my dad to the local community garden when I was a kid, eating mulberries and drinking from the hose while he got on with weeding and watering the tomatoes.
My question is: would Sims spontaneously do gardening tasks on a community lot? I mean townies; I would direct my own Sims to do it, naturally. I'm guessing probably not, since the neighbors don't ever stop by my Sims' houses to tend to the carrot patch. And if they did, say, pick a basket of veg, what would they do with it on a comm lot? I got into making smaller lots, and more of them, to give my hoods a more crowded, less "suburban Ohio" feel. As a result there is less room for gardening on the resi lots, so I thought I might make a community one. But I don't know that it would be a success. I might have to put some other attractions - a playground maybe, or a fishing hole, to attract people. What do people think of the idea, generally?

Perhaps use it for playable Sims to harvest fruits and use it to blend juices. Townies and neighbors could autonomously drink from the basket/tray. if you had Open for Business, you could have children use the lemonade stands (believe they do use it autonomously, so you could place as many of them use want). With the juice keg from University Life, you could pretend it has been stocked up from gardeners.

I make community gardens, but not to run as businesses. I just make the community lot with most of the veggies/fruits ready to harvest and when Sims visit, they can pick what they need.

That's a good point. Gardening on a community lot wouldn't actually have any effect on the plants, because they'd just reset when the lot was left.

Would an owned lot work? Make a bandatron lot with a really low entry fee and let people take home what they grow and harvest? Of course it would only move time along for the plants if the owner was at the lot. IDK.

I wonder if there's a way to set plants to different states on a community lot. Like, set some to harvestable, others sick, some bushes needing trimming etc.,

In my messing with it, that happens anyway, because it's pretty tricky to get it all the way I want in one go. I've never found a way to do this without having the lot temporarily owned by a master gardener and then selling it to the community. So doing it that way, it could be set up however you wanted.