In 2022, I Became a Community Gardener

2022 was the year I became a community gardener. As written by the CEO of Denver Urban Gardens, a community garden organization.

I live in LoDo (or historic Lower Downtown Denver for those of y’all reading this not from the Denver area). I love my urban existence and I crave green space. To that end, over the years, I created my own rooftop oasis where I grow flowers and, with varying success, food. A major triumph in recent years are the friendly pollinators who now visit in droves.

My rooftop garden

But I have always wanted to be a community gardener.

Downtown Denver has had two DUG gardens — a sweet little one on the Auraria campus (established in 2015 with 16 plots) and a glorious installment in Eddie Maestas Triangle Park (established in 2014 with 28 plots… and bees). Both are full with long wait lists, so I assumed it was not meant to be. At one point — well before I became CEO at DUG — I had even gone to the DUG website and explored what it would take to establish a new community garden, greedily eyeing the underutilized surface parking lot down the street…

Then, early in my tenure at DUG, I learned of the soon-to-open Commons Park Community Garden (Commons). This garden, a labor of love of the Riverfront Park Association in partnership with Denver Parks and Recreation, had been in the making for 5 years. Beset by the inevitable challenges and discoveries of doing things in the heart of a city on land that has been used for many things over many years, this garden came to life through tenacity and vision.

The Commons Park Community Garden, est’d 2022

With 31 concrete plots, a fence, a shed and a perennial bed, Commons opened spring of this year. And I was lucky enough to get plot number 9.

It’s been fab. Here are some takeaways from the summer.

1. There is massive demand for community gardens in downtown Denver. People want this. A lot of people. Commons alone has a waitlist of…130. We need more gardens.
2. This took years, vision, and perseverance. The community worked really hard for this garden. Listening to Ron Cohen’s (the driving force behind the Riverfront Community Foundation) origin story of how the garden came to be at the ribbon cutting ceremony was inspiring.
3. To have an opportunity to work together with my neighbors — people from all walks of life who come to the garden with different experiences and expectations, all bringing different gifts — to form the fabric and character of this particular garden is… magical. There are few places we see this anymore — the lost art of collaboratively creating community.
4. From the first community work day, I was stunned by the volunteers who showed up to help shovel soil and plant perennials. These were folks who weren’t going to garden at Commons and don’t live in the neighborhood — they were there because they believe in what we are doing! They want to roll up their sleeves and devote their Saturday to creating active urban green spaces.
5. The community piece of community gardens is for real. I’ve lived in LoDo for 16 years and I met more neighbors this summer than in the previous 16. People I’ve probably passed on the street every day, but now had a reason to engage and establish a relationship with.
6. Growing one’s food is a constant learning exercise. I got ideas from all other 30 gardeners every time I was at the garden. And I had the good fortune to be right next to our resident Master Gardener who’s plot was stunning, diverse and thriving. Something to aspire to next year!
7. I am fond of saying that I am not a very good gardener, but, heck, I harvested bushels (what is a bushel anyway?) of produce. While my plot might not have been the prettiest — I didn’t prune so my tomatoes turned into thick-stemmed trees and tomatoes and peppers were the only crops that survived — mother nature is mighty and tenacious and forgiving and graciously offered her bounty regardless of my mistakes. Or negligence. I made a dozen jars of delicious green tomato pickles to show for it.
8. I felt like a proud parent — throughout the summer I’d sucker my running pals into looping by the garden to water my plot, just so I could show it off.
9. Seeing folks from the neighborhood share the veggies we’d grown filled my heart.
10. Bringing my kids to the garden and having them welcomed with open arms while seeing a lush, biodiverse oasis arise out of one of their favorite parks is what this whole thing is all about. Community. Dreams. Regeneration.

Bringing my running pals by the garden

Green tomato pickles!

It was immensely valuable to experience DUG’s work wearing a gardener hat — after all, gardeners are the heart and soul of everything we do.

To conclude, I’d like to share an eloquent reflection from a fellow (and lifelong) community gardener in Washington, DC, on the juicy, rich and unique wonder that is community gardening.

“In gardens, nobody knows who you are… The glorious anonymity. The real definition of community. In the garden I can be a different kind of civic actor. I have conversations with total strangers — everyone wants to talk. The garden is a third place. A place where you are out there not because of who you are, but where you are and what you are doing.” Sterling Speirn

As we round out 2022, I feel incredibly grateful to have had this experience. I can hardly wait for another year of growing — in so very many ways — in 2023.