DENVER — A partnership between Denver Urban Gardens (DUG) and the Denver Parks and Recreation Department has set a record on the north side of Denver by building a community garden and food forest.
DUG has built its 200th community garden and 20th food forest on a plot of land at 48th Avenue and Julian Street to provide access to healthy food to the neighborhood. Nessa Mogharreban is the director of corporate partnerships for DUG and said this will be a great space for the community.
“This space was actually part of Rocky Mountain Lake Park, and about 60 years ago when Interstate 70 was built, they cut off three parcels here that have kind of been just fallow and unused,” Mogharreban said. “It’s going to be a great resource for community building as well as food access as well as climate resilience.”
The plot of land is owned by the city and has been vacant for more than 60 years. The partnership built the community garden and food forest to regenerate land and reduce heat. Mogharreban said the group planted fruit trees to help cool down the area and help with pollution from nearby I-70.
“Pretty soon, this area will be about 5-10 degrees cooler,” Mogharreban said. “When the trees grow into maturity, they will really help with that noise pollution, they will help heal this soil and create shade for this heat island effect that we’re seeing here.”
A group of about 30 volunteers and staff members from DUG built the infrastructure by building garden borders and shoveling compost to create 20 garden plots. They also planted apple, pear, and cherry trees along with berry bushes in the food forest. Mogharreban said one garden plot can help feed a family of four or produce food for family and friends.
“This will produce thousands of pounds of food once all these trees and berries are mature, and this is food access for anyone and everyone,” Mogharreban said. “You don’t see too many grocery stores for healthy, organic, hyper-local produce, so this is where you can get that food.”
The group also hopes the new garden will be a meeting place for neighbors and a chance to get outside to enjoy nature.
“People have their home and their job, but this is the third place that people can connect from all walks of life to grow food [and] to share recipes,” Mogharreban said. “These community gardens are really bringing communities together to end the isolation and to connect communities and connect people that might not otherwise talk to their neighbor.”
The hope is for the neighborhood to develop a green thumb on a plot of land that helped DUG set a new milestone.
“We’re one of the largest independent community gardening organizations in the country with our 200 gardens,” Mogharreban said. ”We started actually in north Denver, so to come full circle around with our 200th garden here in north Denver is super exciting, and we couldn’t do it without our partners.”
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