Returning to roots: Community gardens in Boulder County thriving

Patricia Eversoll doesn’t have room at her apartment for a garden. But she wanted to feed her family organic produce without the high price tag.

So the Broomfield resident decided to make her first attempt at a vegetable garden this summer by sharing a plot with her sister at Louisville’s Kerr Community Garden. She’s growing tomatoes, pumpkins, squash, watermelon, radishes, garlic, onions, strawberries and carrots.

“It’s just fun,” she said. “It’s a way to relax and commune with the earth.”

Interest in community gardens is soaring. Existing gardens in Boulder County are full and have wait lists, while new gardens and expansions are in the works to meet the demand.

Shrinking paychecks in a stalled economy, along with a desire for more sustainable, locally grown food and making community connections are fueling a renewed interest in gardening.

Seven million more American households plan to grow their own fruits, vegetables, herbs or berries this year than in 2008, almost a 20 percent increase, according to the National Gardening Association.

Growing Gardens, a nonprofit group that manages about 450 plots at seven community gardens in Boulder and Louisville’s Kerr Community Garden, has a wait list at all its gardens this year.

“We’ve experienced three times the amount of demand than we’ve had before,” said Growing Gardens Executive Director Ramona Clark. “Community gardens get people directly connected to the plants and each other and the earth.”

Community gardens flourish

Clark said the main ingredients for a successful community garden are “good soil, good sun and good water.”

Fees for a plot through Growing Gardens range from $36 to $80, depending on the size. Reduced fees are available for those with limited income. Gardeners also commit to four hours of garden community service.

Louisville’s Elaine Wood is in her second season at the Kerr Garden, which started last year on a parcel of open space on Colo. 42. A mother of two young children, she shares a plot with another mom and considers time in the garden “almost like a play date.”

“We did it mostly for our kids, to show them where food comes from,” she said. “It gets you back to the basics. It’s been great.”

Fellow gardener Susan Fries, who lives in a townhouse in Lafayette, has harvested more snow peas and lettuce than she can eat, giving the extra to friends. But what she’s really hoping for is a bumper crop of tomatoes.

“I like playing in the dirt,” she said. “The produce tastes better, and you learn from the other gardeners.”

Lafayette’s Wilson Community Garden, with 66 plots in downtown Lafayette managed by the city, also has a waiting list for the first time this year.

Carole Mock, who’s trying community gardening for the first time this year with a plot in Lafayette, said she doesn’t have a yard and wanted fresh, less expensive produce.

“I just ate some peas,” she said as she attacked weeds in her plot. “They were delicious.”

But, she said, she’s not sure she will try again next year, noting it’s a lot of work to keep a vegetable garden thriving.

“It’s a weed battle,” she said.

More community gardens in the works

With all the demand, there’s a push to expand community gardening opportunities.

In Superior, the Parks, Recreation, Open Space and Trails Advisory Committee is exploring starting a community garden and is expected to make a recommendation to the town board later this year.

Jim Paine, chairman of the committee, said challenges include finding a location and determining if it’s possible to make the garden self-sustaining through user fees. He said gardeners in Superior have been advocating a community garden for several years.

“There are some very enthusiastic people working on this,” he said.

Broomfield also has three community gardens in the works — one at 144th Avenue and Zuni Street, one on 120th Avenue in original Broomfield and one behind the Salvation Army store on Birch Street.

One of the oldest community gardens in the area is the Colorado State University Extension Office at the Boulder County Fairgrounds in Longmont, started more than 30 years ago.

Joel Reich, who manages the garden, said there’s about a 15-person waiting list for the 34 plots — the longest in the garden’s history.

“We provide a place to garden for people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to,” he said.

He also recently helped get an expansion of Longmont’s city-owned Second Start Community Garden approved. Like the “Victory Gardens” popular during World War II, he said, community gardens can increase self-reliance.

“Gardening can really pay off for us,” he said.

Sustainability push

While traditional community gardens — shared land with individual plots where people grow vegetables mainly for themselves — are the most well-known, a variety of other community gardening models are thriving locally.

Transition Louisville, for example, started a 1,500-square-foot community garden this spring in Old Town in a private backyard. About 10 people share in the work, planting, weeding and harvesting all the crops. The produce is eaten by group members, sold at the Louisville Farmers Market as a fundraiser and donated to charity.

“We need to get back to local food,” said Transition Louisville member David Greenwald. “The garden has been wildly successful.”

The Louisville garden is modeled after Boulder’s Community Roots project. Community Roots, started by Kipp Nash, has converted neighborhood yards into an urban multi-plot farm in south Boulder’s Martin Acres neighborhood.

In Broomfield, another transition group also has started a garden at the Presbyterian Church of Broomfield and is donating a portion of the harvest to charity.

Over in Lafayette, residents who live on Flagg Drive off Colo. 7 are starting individual gardens with the eventual goal of hosting a farmers’ market. A community garden also was started this summer by Flatirons Community Church on a couple of acres of private land on Flagg Drive. Gardeners are encouraged to donate half their harvest to charity.

“The overall plan is that the neighborhood is working together to create a strip of gardens,” said resident Wendy Phillips. “We want to encourage community-based agriculture.”

FROM http://www.dailycamera.com/