Linda gets a lot of looks. Riding down the street on a ebike, panniers and a small trailer overflowing with fresh vegetables, people are curious as to what she is doing. It’s not a common site, and people often ask her what she is doing. And the attention is welcome!
Linda is a director at Grow Local Colorado, a Denver-based project that helps people grow fresh food locally in home and community gardens. And not only to help grow the veggies, but to help people understand soil and the native plants that can and cannot be grown.
Urban agriculture has been growing in popularity in recent years as people become more aware of the climate crisis we face. It is still new to many, but it’s not the first time people were encouraged to grow their own in the face of a crisis.
This was new to me, but Linda mentioned these gardens were loosely based on the idea of Victory Gardens. Which to be honest, I had to look up.
[During WWII], the US government turned to its citizens and encouraged them to plant "Victory Gardens."
Farm families, of course, had been planting gardens and preserving produce for generations. Now, their urban cousins got into the act. All in the name of patriotism.
The result of victory gardening? The US Department of Agriculture estimates that more than 20 million victory gardens were planted. Fruit and vegetables harvested in these home and community plots was estimated to be 9-10 million tons, an amount equal to all commercial production of fresh vegetables.
Food shortages affect everyone during a crisis, and this call to farms in the 1940s made a big difference in food security at home and on the front lines. Everyone was united for the wartime effort. And it worked.
Fast-forward to today, we are seeing drought in some areas and flooding in others. This might be a different type of crisis, but one that is no less urgent.
Grow Local Colorado decided they would try something mimicking, but not really, the victory garden style. Ok let’s bring people back outside, in the garden, asking questions. Why can I access this, why can’t others. Why does this soil produce this…
So the garden is a simple way to bring people in, and really just open the door, because one question begets another. So we are hoping to create advocacy for policy change to benefit the soil, to preserve green spaces, and basically to help people understand what it is like to garden again.
Linda
This movement to grow your own is catching on all over the world. Reclaiming our green thumbs might play an bigger role if weather patterns intensify due to global warming. Organizations like GLC are important to keeping this movement moving.
Before joining Grow Local Colorado, Linda was personal chef, so fresh foods has always been part of her career. But driving from house to store to house to store to house… she felt that all of her driving around wasn’t good for the environment.
However, the car-centric infrastructure of her neighborhood doesn’t lend itself to outside-the-4-wheeled-box thinking.
Cycling was an option before but realistically is not feasible. Carrying tools and harvested greens around hilly areas nixed that option.
But recently, she got lucky…
Denver has been issuing vouchers to help people buy ebikes. The city government tried it out and it was a hit. Tons of people wanted them. The began to issue more every couple of months.
These type of voucher programs are sprouting up all over the country. Some are backed by local government, but most of them are supported by city electric power companies. Michigan, California, Texas, Oregon, a Vermont have already launched programs in various cities and counties, and in 2023 many are increasing the amounts they give.
Though not exactly examples of altruism, electric power companies do have deep pockets and could be a driving force behind getting more people on ebikes. The secondary effects are great.
Linda received a voucher from the Denver program this August. She was happy to get on an ebike and use it in her work with GLC. It turned out to be an unexpected experience that improves her day, draws attention to the good she’s doing, and cuts back on her personal carbon footprint.
You can’t imagine how you would use something like this… Sometimes you have your head down. We have a climate crisis, and everyone has their head down following certain systems that force us to not pay attention to what is screaming at us for change.
Before the voucher, however, getting an ebike wasn’t something she considered. Her perception of an ebike was something for cyclists and were more of a luxury than a solution.
Most of the people I speak with start out from a similar point of view… that ebikes are not made more people like me. A feeling that is completely reversed as soon as they take it on their first errand.
Then its like… Woah! how did I make it in life without this magnetically-driven steed!
I hope it inspires more people. I know some gardeners on the board of Slow Foods Denver, and one already has an ebike and she rides it to the garden. She is such a great example of somebody who saw an opportunity to do something right and she did it. Instead of going on a trip, she got that bike. And she and her husband go all over the place. They love it.
Change is made slowly but surely. When Linda started working at Grow Local Colorado in 2015, the operation was much smaller, but it is growing. This year they pulled in almost 10,000 pounds of fresh produce.
That bike played a part in sending away 2,300 pounds from one garden this year, and overall we were just under 10,000 pounds and for our 13 years, over 100,000 pounds
Progress every season as more and more people give GLC access to their land, eliminating food deserts in different parts of the city.
And what seems like an uphill battle… is a lot easier with the help of that electric motor.
Learn more about Grow Local Colorado and how to support the work they are doing!
A Call To Farms