The Community Garden
Welcome to the Community Garden at the Historic Broomfield Crescent Grange. An oasis in the heart of Broomfield, our organic community garden operates on permaculture principles. The tenets of permaculture are Earth care, people care, fair share. This means that our approach to gardening is restorative to the soil, plant and animal ecology, as well as caring for the people whose lives are enhanced by the garden.
Grange Garden Tour from Margaret Emerson on Vimeo.
How is a Communal Garden Different?
Our garden space is shared by all members. Volunteers work in a communal fashion, meaning no one rents a plot or “owns” a piece of the garden. We all contribute to the soil building, expansion, planting, weeding, harvesting, and consumption of the produce in the garden.
As a communal garden member, you don’t have to fear that there won’t be enough food to go around. In fact, we grow such a surplus that we happily consider regular produce deliveries to our local food pantry, FISH, to be a part of our mission.
Our Growing Beds
We have three primary growing beds that accommodate three seasons of planting. In addition to our large veggie beds, we have a pollinator garden, a medicine garden, and a waist-high bed to accommodate gardeners with all abilities.
If you walk around our garden, you might also notice some other amenities – a hoop house, a patio area with chairs, a produce wash station, a sandbox and playhouse, as well as fruit trees, bee hives, and compost stations operated in conjunction with our sister group Sustainable Broomfield and the compost club. If you’d like to learn more about the crops we grow, check out our Meet Our Plants page.
Our Soil
You might think that our major aim at the garden is to grow great veggies. But our first love actually lies in creating great soil. What is the constant lament of Colorado gardeners? Working and growing in clay clods is a nightmare, right? We boast some of the finest garden soil you’ve ever seen in Colorado. It is dark, rich, and crumbles in your hand. We employ several methods for building our amazing soil including sheet mulching, crop rotation, cover crops, and not tiling. The benefits of no-till gardening are especially large in our harsh climate. By not tilling, we are preventing soil compaction, protecting beneficial bacteria and fungi from UV light, more and more. You can read more about no-till agriculture here.
Group Projects
One of our primary goals as a group is to create a real sense of community through our garden. We often have group work days in which we tackle a number of projects from planting in the garden, to creating new infrastructure, to beautifying the historic Grange building, which is over 100 years old.
Before the pandemic struck, we joined together for monthly garden potlucks. We’ve also hosted a variety of classes in the garden – composting, how to build insect hotels, yoga, spotting garden pests and diseases, digging and utilizing horseradish, foraging and cooking with wild plants, and more!
How it Works
Upon joining the garden, we like to pair our new members with veterans to help them to learn the ropes. You’ll get a weekly email detailing the goals for the week. Members check in virtually to help keep track of their weekly contribution to the garden. You’ll want to bring your own gloves, but we have most of the other necessary tools on site. A membership fee of $40 ($70 combined garden and Grange membership aids in supporting the ongoing maintenance of the historic building) helps to pay for supplies and water.
If you think our community garden might be a good fit for you, please email our garden director, Butter, for more information. And hop on over to our Member Profiles page to hear more about why we love to garden at Broomfield Crescent Grange.
