From vegetables to a community by Becky Dickson

By Rebecca Dickson, PPAN board chair and vice chair of the Sierra Club-Indian Peaks Group

Our city and our nation face many challenges right now: concerns about the environment, locally, nationally, internationally; issues with the quality of our food, from pesticide toxins to forever chemicals to microplastics. And nutritious food is more expensive than ever. 

On top of this, the national turmoil just does not stop. It can leave us all feeling alienated and alone and powerless. We might want to reach out to others, but many of us feel wary of doing that. Do we even remember how to reach out to others? Psychologists warn that our nation is undergoing a pandemic of loneliness. Yes. That’s certainly what it feels like.

A group of women in east Boulder, in my neighborhood, came up with an ingenious way to address these concerns: they wanted to share the food they grew in their backyards with others, healthful food without pesticides. Then they talked about taking it a step further: Let’s organize a collective approach to gardening — let’s encourage our neighbors to grow produce, and then let’s share what we grow. That’s exactly what they did, and it was remarkably successful. They grew vegetables, yes, but their greatest success was in growing their community.

Our neighborhood organizers — there were six of them initially — called together the first meeting in the spring of 2025: “We want to grow gardens,” they said. “We want you to grow gardens. We want you to eat our food, and we want to eat your food.” About 20 neighbors showed up at the first meeting. Each one attending talked about what they knew about gardening (zero to Master Gardener). They also talked about goals for the group: They wanted their kids to experience watching a seed grow into a plant they could eat. They wanted to stop growing and mowing so much grass, all summer long.

They wanted to eat yummy food. They wanted to get to know their neighbors.

And they got to work, dozens of them. They shared most everything: the planning, the digging, the compost, the seeds, the seedlings, the sowing. The connection, the sweat, the frustrations. Advice and ideas. Tools. In less than a year, they made a neighborhood in east Boulder more livable and connected, all while sharing healthful food with each other. They met and shared every week, all summer long.

Because of their work, many more of us know each other now. We share each other’s produce. We laugh together. We care about each other’s children, dogs, cats, chickens. We report sightings of coyotes (once last summer), of bobcats (twice). And the group grew — we are about 60 people now.

When we first met, about half of us already had gardens. When we discussed who was willing to tear up Kentucky bluegrass and put in a vegetable garden, several said yep, ready to do that. In spite of rabbits, squirrels, and voles, and a steep learning curve for some, the annual gardening miracle occurred: We put seeds in the ground, and then sprouts appeared, and soon we had chard, lettuce, kale, cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, zucchini, pumpkins and more. A remarkably welcoming woman offered up her house as an exchange point, and that’s where we met each week, sharing what we had with others.

We learned that growing gardens as a neighborhood is a way to help each other feel better and have hope. It’s a way to come together, no matter our differences. It’s a way to get kids and adults off their screens. It’s a way to become a connected community.

This opinion piece can also be found on the Boulder Daily Camera.