PLANTING SEEDS

Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Mar 20, 2008 by DAVE PHILIPPS

For decades, the tidy plots of the Bear Creek Community Garden have flourished on what was once the county poor farm off 21st Street. Then an offshoot group called the Old Farm Community Garden planted itself in an unused horse corral in the northeast part of Colorado Springs.

Another community garden sprung up at Deerfield Hills Community Center.

But Colorado Springs' three long-established community gardens don't have room to accommodate a new crop of would-be gardeners.

Almost every plot is full, and there are waiting lists.

We haven't had an open spot for five years," said Larry Stebbins, president of the Old Farm Community Garden.

There's no question in his mind that the time is ripe for expanding the city's community gardens. The trick is finding places to plant the seeds.

So in December, Stebbins and a number of other local gardeners started Pikes Peak Urban Gardens, a group designed to cultivate new community gardens across the city.

The nonprofit is based on Denver Urban Gardens, a program that grew from three gardens and a handful of volunteers when it started in 1985 to a citywide network with more than 70 gardens, year-round classes and free plants, seeds and composting programs.

"That's what we eventually hope to do," Stebbins said on a recent warm morning as he waited for a friend so he could share some Egyptian onion bulbs.

"Right now our focus is just to help gardens get started. If people can find land with water, we'll help them do the rest."

Pikes Peak Urban Gardens, or PPUG, hopes to foster three or four new gardens a year. New gardens will operate independently but share resources and expertise through PPUG.

Already, plans for new gardens are sprouting.

Two schools, Pikes Peak School of Expeditionary Learning in Falcon and Buena Vista Elementary on the city's west side want to add communal garden plots to their grounds.

This weekend, the congregation of Holy Theophany Eastern Orthodox Church will churn up a patch of its property to add raised beds so members can tend a communal veggie patch.

Stebbins said demand for garden space is growing because people are changing how they think about food.

"There's more interest in organic and local food. Suddenly people want to know where their food comes from," he said.

It's part of a reaction to an increasingly mechanized and disconnected system of food production in the United States. Communities that once produced much of their own food in kitchen gardens, backyard chicken coops and truck farms on the edge of town now are supplied with produce that travels an average of 1,500 miles from field to plate.

Around the country, a backlash can be seen in the increasing number of farmers markets and the popularity of books that champion eating locally, such as Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle."

"We've seen a surge in interest for a variety of reasons from food costs to food security -- that is, making sure it's from a reliable source," said Amy DeShon, executive director of the American Community Gardening Association, which represents an estimated 19,000 community gardens in North America.

"With the record rise in fuel costs I think we're going to see more than ever this year the need for backyard and community gardens."

Community garden acreage in Colorado Springs hasn't mirrored this trend. The city hasn't added a garden in 20 years.

"They fill up very quickly. There's obviously a real need for it," said Conni De-Mark, a program coordinator at Deerfield Community Center.

Most people can simply garden in their yards if they feel the need to reconnect, but Stebbins said a community garden offers more than a place to plant seeds. It's a depository of knowledge where veteran planters can offer tips to neophytes. It's a down-in-the- dirt window to the natural world where children can see that not everything good in the world comes from a store.

"Plus you get to know your neighbors," Stebbins said. "When you have a success you share it. When you have a failure, you share it. It's a great community."

Just then, fellow gardener Bobbyjoe Franks showed up for the onions.

"That's true," Franks said. "You don't meet too many mean gardeners. I always found if a family gardens together, you grow up all right."

He chuckled and took the extra onion bulbs, then joked and talked with Stebbins for almost an hour even though the bare, late-winter beds didn't require them to hang around.

"That's what the garden is," Franks said. "You leave your outside life at the fence and just enjoy it."

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0223 or dave.philipps@gazette.com WHAT IS A COMMUNITY GARDEN?

Any piece of land gardened by a group of people. Colorado Springs' three gardens are all on city or county land. Gardeners sign up for a plot in early spring. Prices range from $10 to $80 and include water.

BEAR CREEK GARDEN ASSOCIATION Where: Bear Creek Regional Park. $80 per season for a 20-by-40-foot plot. More info: Call Char Nymann at 473-5827.

OLD FARM COMMUNITY GARDENS Where: Behind the old Barnes farmhouse on Old Farm Circle West, in the northeast section of the city. $32.50 for a 20-square-foot plot. Waiting list. More info: Call Larry Stebbins at 570-0745.