Growing Locally
Getting Creative with Community Gardening by Larry Stebbins, Director, Pikes Peak Urban Gardens
In the winter of 2007 Pikes Peak Urban Gardens (PPUG) was born. It began with an idea I had to help our region build more community gardens (at the time, our city of over 400,000 had only three). My vision was to do just as
others have done; find land and a water source, organize the community, and then stand back and watch the veggies grow. Well, I was in for a surprise. Land with water is scarce here, and our hungry urban deer need to be fenced out. Money to get all this and more would be our first need. I became very familiar with the grant writing process. Four years and 15 grants later, we now have nine more community gardens, a one-half acre demonstration veggie garden and a school greenhouse. If you think it sounds like we drifted from our mission to just build com- munity gardens, you’re right. We realized along the way that our mission has really been about teaching folks how to garden in order to grow their own food and providing the resources to get it done. Community garden projects come in many shapes and sizes. For example, I received a call three years ago from Father Anthony at Holy Theophany Church. He wanted to help open up part of his church property as a garden for his neighbors. PPUG brought soil and building materials for raised beds, some vegetable seeds and seedlings. Today it is a thriving garden with
over a dozen families participating. Delicious potluck garden dinners are an added bonus. PPUG was also asked by our city’s Parks and Recreation to see if we wanted to help improve underused areas in some of the parks with urban gardening. We jumped at the chance. Our first endeavor was Dorchester Park located in a soon-to-be revital- ized business section of our town. There are no homes close to this park, but nearby is the Springs Rescue Mission, an organization that helps rehabilitate recovering men. Together we applied for funds. Today, on about 5,000 square feet of land, some of the men are growing tasty, nutritious food.
It is not a secret that Colorado Springs, like many cities, is experiencing some budget difficulties. The schools are not immune to this problem. As a result a westside elementary school was closed. Today, with the help of PPUG, it hosts a community center, food pantry, and, yes, a community garden. But this is no ordinary garden. The site is an old playground with gravel as deep as you can dig. Our solution was to build up. There are now over 70 raised bed gardens filled with rich organic soil. Some are 30 inches high and only three feet across for our elderly and disabled folks. One gardener in a wheel chair told me that this was the best garden she has ever had. Our latest project is managing a 42-foot-diameter, off-the-grid, biodome greenhouse at Galileo School of Math and Science in Colorado Springs. We were asked to manage and grow organic salad greens for the students of District 11. This was the brain-child of Rick Hughes, director of Food Services. Jamie Oliver would be proud of how he is changing what the children eat. Fresh, organic, local food is his goal. Our most ambitious project is our Demonstration Organic Vegetable Garden located on four acres in Colo-
rado Springs. The front acreage is tilled and in production. All summer long, families come to just explore and taste (tasting is encouraged and is free!). If a visitor wants to take home a bunch of lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, or squash there is a small charge. In the Children’s Garden each child is allowed to pick a free rainbow carrot. They might get a red, orange, yellow, purple or white one. It is fun to see the little ones walking around munching. Looking back, if PPUG had just stuck to building “traditional” community gardens, we would be miss- ing many opportunities to help our community become more food self-sufficient. So if you have a community that wants to garden, please think outside the box!
Winter/Spring 2012
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