Letter from the Director

Fall/Winter letter from DUG Executive Director Michael Buchenau

As another growing season comes to a close, much of our attention at DUG has turned once again to supporting a significant number of new garden projects emerging throughout the city. As we meet on each new project with community members, various agency and city officials, the support we’ve received has been extremely encouraging. It seems that the idea of community gardens throughout our city is officially coming of age.

It hasn’t hurt that the research findings from the Colorado School of Public Health continue to reveal the potential for community gardens to play an important role in a broad approach to improved health in our urban communities. Community gardens are everyday landscapes that address daily needs for healthy food while promoting substantive connections between people and their living environment. They are also a tangible action that communities can take and maintain on their own, and as such have gotten the attention of a broader audience, especially of late.

In fact, we've been asked recently by numerous urban planners, health officials and policymakers to outline the tangible actions they should consider as they work to establish a network of community gardens in their jurisdictions. As actions relate in particular to land planning, we’ve suggested the following:  

- foremost, establish that a need and desire for a community garden exists from within the community, including a commitment from interested parties to participate throughout the process of establishing, using and maintaining the garden;

- ensure that planning processes include a public outreach component that is inclusive and connects with potential participants that might otherwise be overlooked;

- ensure that community gardens are part of land planning processes up front, so that they don’t end up an afterthought that then has to be retrofit into urban development;

- ensure that community gardens are considered a primary and permanent open space option as part of all master planning efforts, on par with valued elements such as playgrounds, bike trails and community plazas;

- work to establish zoning codes which protect community gardens, while liberally allowing them in appropriate zone codes and identifying them as a use-by-right;

- rather than private property, consider properties for community gardens where they become part of the permanent programming of a site, such as parks and open spaces, school grounds, institutions, and affordable housing developments; 

- ensure that community gardens are available and accessible to all communities, especially in food desserts and in low-income communities with marginalized and isolated populations;

- promote the establishment of community gardens and garden-to-cafeteria programs at schools for the primary purposes of teaching children hands-on lessons in healthy nutrition, science, environmental stewardship and social studies; and  

- encourage programming that connects community gardens to other entities in local food systems including food banks and shelters, farmer’s markets, and local chef networks.

Collectively, these steps can go a long way in improving community health, and we are thrilled to be a part of this movement toward healthy, self-sustaining communities. We are grateful for the tremendous support we’ve received these past 25 years, and as we move forward, we hope that you will continue to join us in growing community- one urban garden at a time.

Warm Regards, 

Michael Buchenau
Executive Director
Denver Urban Gardens 

This letter was originally published in the Fall/Winter 2010 Edition of The Underground News.

Letter from the Director

Summer letter from DUG Executive Director Michael Buchenau
This letter was also published in the Summer 2010 Edition of The Underground News.  

We’ve all experienced what it means to be emotionally attached to a “place”. It could be a home, a scenic vacation spot returned to year after year, a neighborhood coffee shop, a school campus or even an old ballpark. Positive connections to a place seem to be associated with emotions and experiences, as well as with fond memories. Becoming attached to a place often seems to involve a sense of stewardship and a willingness to put forth effort to care for a place.

At DUG, we’ve intuitively known that this is what occurs with community gardens. In fact, it is in the care of a garden plot and the garden as a whole that attachment seems to develop. Through good and not so bountiful seasons, damaging hailstorms, changing garden membership, successes and failures, and even the occasional garden conflict - community gardeners grow increasingly attached to their garden as a “place”. Their optimism for the possibilities in the garden seem to expand with each passing season.

For the past 4 years, researchers from the Colorado School of Public Health explored the relationship between place attachment and community gardens, and in particular how place attachment might affect people’s decision-making around healthy lifestyle choices. In this edition of the Underground News, Dr. Jill Litt continues her series on the research findings with a spotlight on the concept of place attachment. Her piece entitled Rx for Healthy Place Making: Making Places Meaningful, builds off of her article in the spring edition, which focused on “collective efficacy” and community gardens.

I find community gardens especially unique when it comes to the concept of place attachment. Gardens are everyday landscapes that are worked, nurtured and always changing. They are places where gardeners develop an active and on-going relationship with the land, while the land gives back in return. Gardens are unique in that they are just as much about the social network of gardeners as they are about the physical garden space - one cannot exist without the other. Community gardens are places where people grow food and grow healthy together, and as such, are at the same time both very simple and very profound.

After our 100th garden groundbreaking at Ruby Hill Park on September 25th, I’m struck by how unique each of the 100 DUG gardens is in both its physical and social makeup. I marvel at how people of all ages and backgrounds become attached to their garden. They care equally about their garden and their fellow gardeners, and they become attached to what the garden means in their everyday life.  And it is in that depth of attachment that gardens have the potential to create lasting change.

Michael

Letter from the Director

Spring letter from DUG Executive Director Michael Buchenau
This letter was also published in the Spring 2010 Edition of The Underground News.  

Already deep into our 25^th Anniversary year, DUG has never been busier supporting the network of new and existing community gardens throughout the Metro Area. Over 30 new Master Composters and 25 new Master Community Gardeners have begun their outreach in the community. DUG’s corps of Connecting Generation volunteers has, in two very short years, expanded to 20 committed adults working intensively in 7 DUG school gardens.

DUG’s collaborative work with partner organizations is in full swing, adding significant value to the services we provide - from our education partnership in schools with SlowFood Denver, Learning Landscapes and Denver Public Schools; to our service-learning garden construction with GroundWork Denver’s Youth Green Team and long-time partner Mile High Youth Corps.

We’re thrilled again in 2010 to be working closely with Parks Departments from Denver, Aurora, Englewood and Westminster; as well as with Denver and Lakewood Housing Authorities. At DeLaney Community Farm, we anticipate another great season working with Tri-County Health Department’s WIC program and Community Partner Shareholders from Project Angle Heart, The Colorado Aids Project and the Gathering Place. And then there are the countless partnerships we share at each garden site with organizations such as Atlantis Communities, Developmental Pathways, Mercy Housing, Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, Butterfly Hope, Bridges of Silence, Dandelion Project, and Bridge Project to name just a few.

In 2010, there is no shortage of new garden projects including: our first garden in the City of Englewood, a garden connecting Regis University students with Berkeley neighborhood residents, a garden as part of Denver Park’s renovation of Ruby Hill Park, a garden in the Jefferson Park neighborhood on the grounds of DPS’s CEC Middle College of Denver, and the new Ekar Garden in Lowry adjacent to the Denver Academy of Torah.

In addition to new gardens, DUG is helping lead efforts to renovate and expand existing gardens at Steck and Brown elementary schools and at Place Bridge Academy, as well as at Denver Housing Authorities’ Mulroy and Quigg Newton developments. DUG is also working to expand the E. 13^th Avenue Garden as part of the new Westerly Creek Park Project, in partnership with the Trust for Public Land and the Denver Parks and Recreation.

As busy as we are, we do plan to take the time to celebrate our 25^th Anniversary and the milestone of our 100th community garden. A very dedicated committee of volunteers has been hard at work planning our exciting Nourish & Flourish events to be held on May 20^th and September 25^th of this year. In the most recent edition of The Underground News, Dr. Jill Litt begins a series of articles summarizing the findings from the Colorado School of Public Health’s 4-year research study exploring the health benefits of community gardens. A documentary on this important work will be a central element at the Nourish & Flourish events, and will be made available on our website in June.

Here’s to the amazing network of gardens we support and to a very memorable year at DUG!

Michael