Urban gardens germinate seeds of better health in Denver

MISSION: NUTRITION » In this occasional series, The Denver Post explores “food deserts” — or areas that lack easy access to fresh food — and the impact that the lack of access has on Colorado residents and their overall health.

Daniel Chavez isn’t big on salads. The 13-year-old will, however, nibble on flowers.

“This isn’t so bad,” Daniel said last week, munching on nasturtium leaves. Flower tasting was just one of Daniel’s rewards for showing up at the inauguration of the Urban Agriculture Project in the Globeville, Elyria and Swansea neighborhoods. The project is a joint one involving Feed Denver, the Urban Farm and the city of Denver.

Feed Denver mentors helped kids plant cucumbers, sweet corn, tomatoes, peas and a veritable salad bowl of other veggies — all of which had been fertilized with organic worm juice — in dirt placed atop an asphalt parking lot at East 42nd Avenue and Steele Street.

It may seem an unlikely pairing: greenies who toss expressions like “food shed” and “sustainability” into casual conversation and people whose income doesn’t allow organic tomatoes, or organic anything else, to be an option.

But that is exactly what is happening. Across Denver and around the country, activists in the organic, “slow food” and locally grown food movements are planting seeds of fresh food, and better health, in neighborhoods where both can be hard to come by.

In Denver, groups such as Feed Denver, Revision International, the GrowHaus, Denver Urban Gardens, Slow Food Denver, the University of Colorado’s Learning Landscapes program and Sprout City Farms may have different approaches and differing philosophies. But all share one thing: They are bringing lettuce lifelines, one neighborhood at a time, to a nation drowning in high-fructose corn syrup.

Last year, Eric Kornacki’s Revision International planted seven gardens in southwest Denver yards.

“It is about teaching people to grow food where they live,” Kornacki said, “so they have access to healthy food.”

One price of admission was that each family that got a garden agreed to share its harvest with another family and to convince another household to get its hands dirty too.

Those seven households kept the bargain: This spring, Kornacki, with funding from grants and private donors, will bring gardens to 40 backyards.

“The model we’re setting up is the pay-it-forward model. We help you with your garden, and we’re asking you to become a teacher to the next family,” he said.

On his travels through southwest Denver, Kornacki may run into volunteers from Slow Food Denver.

With a state Department of Agriculture grant, Slow Food will create Youth Farmers’ Markets at four schools in the Westwood area.

Not only will kids sell fresh, Colorado produce, they also will offer cooking demonstrations and nutrition classes, said Slow Food’s Andrew Nowak.

It may be too soon to gauge whether all this dirt-turning is doing any good. Three months’ worth of vegetables and fruits can’t undo 12 months of bad eating habits, after all.

But Kornacki said that in a survey of the seven families he worked with last year, every one of them said having a backyard garden meant they ate more fruit and vegetables.

It’s a small sample size. But Kornacki — who left college in 2007 with degrees in economics and international studies, and a concern about global issues such as food deserts — is convinced neighborhood gardens are growing exponentially and already are making a difference.

In fact, Revision International, along with LiveWell Colorado and Sisters of Color, have gotten a grant to find out whether gardening can reduce a neighborhood’s violence. Keep kids clean by getting them into the dirt, in other words.

In the meantime, quite a few Globe ville, Swansea and Elyria kids are going to spend the summer watching to see whether enough vegetables to feed a few families will sprout where machines once churned out mass quantities of Safeway ice cream.

Daniel Chavez was the first to arrive at the farm on Friday and proudly held up a bowl of his homemade tomatillo salsa that he brought to share.

“These kids are so enthusiastic about gardening, it’s amazing,” said Rick Garcia, manager of the Urban Farm.

When the new northeast Denver concrete garden is ready to harvest in a couple of months, the students will get a chance to see the vegetables and herbs produced of their labor.

Paula Thompson, whose daughter Kasmira was helping out Friday, said she would be keeping a watchful eye on the farm in the meantime.

“We’ve got to let people know this is important to our community, so respect it and open up to it,” Thompson said.

Karen Auge 303-954-1733 or kauge@denverpost.com Annette Espinoza: 303-954-1655 or aespinoza@denverpost.com