How Community Gardens Can Make Cities Stronger
Linda Appel Lipsius is the executive director of Denver Urban Gardens, where she supports a network of over 200 gardens and food forests that produce 650,000 pounds of food annually. She also helps launch initiatives to help make Denver a greener, more food-resilient place.
Linda and Tiffany discuss the importance of nature in urban resilience and the benefits of community gardening, from access to healthy food to community building and mental health improvement. Linda explains how a permaculture design philosophy can help cities become more resilient.
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Tiffany Owens Reed 0:00
Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of the bottom up Revolution podcast. I'm your host. Tiffany Owens, I'm recording this from a friend's house in the countryside here in Texas, and being surrounded by so much nature has been a treat. It's also reminded me of how important nature is to the life of the city, and how important it is that we consider our natural environment when thinking about and defining resilience, cities are more resilient when they respect nature and take into account the typology and natural constraints within which they exist. Cities are also more resilient when they invest in and support efforts like community gardening, not just because of the direct connection to improved local food supply, but also because these kinds of initiatives often provide a sense of community to the people working in them. There's so much to say on these topics, especially on the benefits of community gardening, and that is why I'm excited to introduce today's guest, Linda apolis is executive director of Denver urban gardens, a grassroots nonprofit that started in the 1970s when a group of neighbors came together to create a space for local Hmong women to grow their own food. In 1985 it became a 501 c3 and since then, it's grown into a network of over 200 gardens and food forests. A Denver native, Linda returned home 18 years ago after spending several years of living and working in several big cities, including New York City, London and Washington, DC. She's been executive director at Denver urban gardens since 2020. In her role, she leads her team in supporting hundreds of community gardens around the city and launching variation, various initiatives to help make Denver a greener, more food resilient place. Linda, welcome to the bottom up Revolution podcast.
Linda Appel Lipsius 1:44
Thank you for having me. I'm delighted to be here.
Tiffany Owens Reed 1:46
So you're from Denver, as I mentioned, but you've lived in several other really cool, big cities. Can you share a bit about kind of your professional journey, and maybe how that's like, connected to all these other places you've gotten to live in, and how you came eventually to come back to Denver. Called Denver home, and what you appreciate about your city?
Linda Appel Lipsius 2:08
Absolutely. So, yeah, so born and raised in Denver, and it's a very different place. Back then, went to college and business school in New York City, spent some time in DC, went to London, Los Angeles, before coming back. And, you know, the journey after college, I wanted to go into nonprofits, and was really looking at sort of health and healthcare and that area. But then I decided that I'm too much of a people person, so I wanted to be very, you know, working with people, and really started to orient myself towards business went to business school. Out of business school, I started working with my family's business, which was really a treat that took me to London, where I spent five years living in that glorious city, and then eventually moved back to Los Angeles, where we started to raise our family, and after that, I started a new company of my own that was called ttliya Organic teas. And that is tea business that sources its tea from a 3000 acre regenerative organic tea garden in Bangladesh that really started tapping me into the impact space to organic this also all happened when I was pregnant and having my first kid, which really, really heightened my awareness of the importance of playing food. And then, yeah, did that, and then eventually we came back to raise the family here in Denver. So continued with titulia, started another business called the mamahood to support new and expecting moms and their families. And did all of that for about 15 years. And then when COVID hit, decided I was ready for a change and just really wanted to have more direct impact in my hometown. I joined the board of Denver urban gardens, and then eventually, through some transitions, I became the Executive Director. So that's the journey, in terms of the spaces and the cities. You know, I've been really so thrilled coming back to Denver, like I say it was a really different place when I grew up and born in 1971 private and, yeah, it's a, it's a surprisingly collaborative town. And I was really struck by that when I came back, you know, again, from sort of LA and New York and London, you know, when I was launching titulia, every, like, literally, Everybody I talked to was like, Hey, can I open my then Rolodex? Who can I introduce you to? And, like, freely, openly. There was no sort of scarcity mentality. It was like, let me help you. That was something that was just so refreshing. And I found that since I've been here, across everything I've done. The other thing is that there's really just, I think, you know, we have such a healthy outdoor culture here. Um. Um, so there's just, it's a positive vibe. It's a cognitive energy. We they say we have more days of sunshine than anywhere else in the city, you know. So it's just a, really, it's a nice place to be. I love everywhere I live. But those are definitely some of the distinguishing factors here.
Tiffany Owens Reed 5:16
Thank you for giving us that overview. I'm tempted to ask you about what it was like living in, I don't know, just traveling around to all these interesting places, but we'll stay on track. But I want to know now, can you just paint a picture of Denver for people who've never been there? Maybe just kind of like, is it I'm just curious, is it like flat? Is it hilly? Is it desert? Is it green? Is it on a grid? How industrial is it in terms of its development? Just if you had to, kind of like, describe it, or maybe think of a picture or a snapshot, like, how would you describe your city for folks who've never been?
Linda Appel Lipsius 5:48
Yeah, it's actually all of the above. So we're right at the edge of the plains before you hit the Rocky Mountain. So if you look east, it is hilarious. When you fly into Denver, if you come from the east, it's totally flat. Then there's a little city, if you fly in from the west coast, it's mountains, and then there's a city. So we literally are at the base of the Rockies, and yeah, and it's totally dry, so we're high desert. So when I'm coming back from DC or somewhere with actual moisture and humidity, where there's trees, not the case, like there are, like, no trees. I, you know, I the first time I traveled outside of Denver, or one of the first times that I remember going to Washington, DC, and I was like, How can anybody tell what direction West is? Because you're surrounded by trees here. There's no trees. You can see the mountains. You always know which way west is. So, yeah, so it's a, really, it's a spread out city, sort of, and it's kind of a small town. I mean, it's not, it's, you know, the metro. And I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but, you know, it's, it's, it's not, it's not the biggest city. It's not the smallest city. We're sort of also in the middle, you know, like the closest big city is, like Chicago and Phoenix, maybe. So there's really not a lot around us. And, yeah, and then you're asking about industry, like it's, you know, there's parts of town that definitely have more industry, but not so much. But the interesting thing about the topography here is that, because of the mountains, the pollution gets trapped in the valley. And they say this actually went, you know, even goes back to before the industrial era, when people were just cooking on fires, that the smoke would get trapped. And we call that the brown cloud here. So it's just sort of an interesting that happens. It used to be way, way, way worse when I was growing up, so we've definitely seen improvement on that front.
Tiffany Owens Reed 7:36
Do you know that anything about the history behind how Denver came to be? I'm just looking at a picture of it on the map and seeing, literally, how, like, the left side of my map is green and the right side is tan. And then with what you're just saying about, like, the pollution issue and the typology in the desert, like, what was Dean, I'm just curious if you know any of the stories behind, like, the founding, or what kind of gave the city its original kind of purpose, yeah.
Linda Appel Lipsius 8:03
I mean, it's a Frontier City, you know, if you think about it, so, and we're also known as the Centennial State. So we, you know, in eight, oh my gosh, yes, centennial, 1876 we became a state. And, you know, it was a lot of gold mining. I mean, a lot of up in the mountains that people were coming out to find their fortunes. And, yeah, I mean, I think that was really it. It was like ranchers and gold miners and people who wanted to stake their claim, and then eventually, you know, just sort of turned into, you know, into what it is today, but it's very much on the western frontier.
Tiffany Owens Reed 8:37
Sorry to put you on the spot with a history question.
Linda Appel Lipsius 8:41
Yeah, I was like, oh gosh.
Tiffany Owens Reed 8:42
Like, Tiffany, you did not put this in your list of questions. Okay, so coming back to where you're at now, so you're working at Denver urban gardens, can you share a little bit about how you discovered your interest in gardening and permaculture and specifically and the community garden model or framework?
Linda Appel Lipsius 9:01
Yeah. So, you know, I mentioned that my, my career path led me to start, you Tulia, and at the same time, I was having my kid, and really learned through the process, and my business partners had set up this, this tea garden using really intense, organic method. So the Fukuoka method, which is no till farming, you know, and really, really hardcore kind of, let nature do nothing farming, let nature take care of it. And it was, it was like miraculous. When I went over there to see, you know, the tea garden was on one side of the road. There was other sort of industrial, whatever is happening on the other side of the road, and when you walked into the garden, literally, like the temperature dropped 15 degrees, like the oxygen was richer. You heard the birds singing. People were smiling, like, like, the impact of the biodiversity and the tree canopy on everything, on well being, and the climate was just incredible. And the tea that we were growing. Totally clean. So there was no chemical pesticides or fertilizers. And really sort of was able to deep dive on how really insidious, you know, the sort of agrochemical world is with the pesticides and fertilizers and all the things that that go with it. So that really just heightened my awareness of sort of organic and regenerative practices. Then in 2018 I took a permaculture class, the permaculture design course, something that I recommend to everybody. And it's really, it's a, it's a it's sort of grounded in, you know, agriculture and growing, but it's just really, it's a systems way of approaching the world. I like to describe it as the Lost language of hope. It's how humans can live regeneratively on this planet. So I took this permaculture course, and it really reframed all of my thinking, and which is great, and that sort of informed my life for a little while. And then in 2020, came to came to Dug, and the through line for me is, you know, it's gardens, and gardens, and gardens, you know, it's clean food, clean food, and I think, and you know, organic, regenerative practices. But the difference for me here is this is in my community, and this is affecting 40,000 people every year. This is individuals taking, you know, this into their own hands, and digging in the soil and reaping all the benefits that come from growing your own food. So it's just been a really kind of cool progression, yeah, yeah.
Tiffany Owens Reed 11:29
I want to dive into permaculture a little bit on this during this conversation. But had you heard of Dug before, like did for urban gardens, or had you heard of, had you heard of applying this in like, an urban context. Before? Was that new for you? Or what was that like, kind of combining, like, everything you had learned about gardening and permaculture and everything with like the unique constraints of doing it in this city, specifically one that was like a desert city, you know, it's, it's a city. So what was it like, kind of seeing those worlds come together?
Linda Appel Lipsius 12:02
Well, my early influence, actually, it even goes way, way before this. So, you know, I lived in New York City, and I remember after I played a soccer game, and I was walking back on the Lower East Side, and I saw this, this lot that was a garden that was between, you know, all of these, these apart, with these old, like, you know, brownstones. And I was just like, wait, what, like, highest real estate value in the country, and there's literally a garden, a full, full blown garden there, and that actually planted the seed. And that was, I mean, that was, that was probably mid 20s, just to understand how, like, you know, community driven agriculture can live within the city. So that was really, I think that was kind of the first, the first thing, and then, you know, since then, just just understanding, like, like, the benefits, like, like, we're so I love city living. I will always live in a city, but you're when you're disconnected from nature, you know, it definitely has an impact. And I think we're really seeing that manifest, and yet, we are able to bring nature into the city. We are able to invite people in, and community gardens are like the easiest, lowest barrier way to do that. Everybody can participate. Everyone can benefit. So it's just, it's a super cool thing.
Tiffany Owens Reed 13:15
What have you noticed? What has been interesting about bringing this about, seeing this unfold in Denver, particularly with the unique climate constraints, and just, yeah, anything else that you've noticed about what it's like cultivating these gardens in your city.
Linda Appel Lipsius 13:32
Right. So, yeah, so bringing it to Denver is full of, I don't like to say challenges, I'll say opportunities, because it's the high desert. Yes, we get a lot of sunshine, but we get, like, barely any rainfall. There's no humidity here. You know, it's really high. And so we have a short growing season. We have what we say it's a six month growing season, but with the climate change, it's definitely expanding beyond that and and it's really harsh, and you really have to water. And something that we've really started to turn from a challenge and a problem into an opportunity, is the fact that you you have to actively care for your your plants, hair and in our gardens. One of the things is, we do not allow timers. We because it's part of, you know, community building, like you have to show up you. You can't just set a timer in March and come back in October and you've got this gorgeous garden. It means you have to show up in water. It means, if you're out of town, you have to ask your neighbor to show up and water your plot. And also, if you look in a more humid place, you could actually plant in May and come back in October. So we sort of see that as a way that, like you have to actively care for your plants in Denver. And that means, you know, I think it's actually been a huge benefit to Dug's dirty model is build that community building pieces you gotta show up or you're gonna lose your crops. So.
Tiffany Owens Reed 14:54
I want to come back to that, because I think there's something so interesting in that concept. But you just said a phrase, kind of Dug's community model. Can maybe, can you give us an overview of Dug, a little bit, kind of like how it's set up? What's the model? Maybe a little bit about how many of the guard, how do the gardens get going? How are they sustained? And maybe you can talk a little bit about the gardens and what a food forest is, for those of us who have never heard that before.
Linda Appel Lipsius 15:19
Absolutely. So Denver urban gardens, or Dug, as we call it. So, you know, you mentioned we started back in the 70s and the 80s, and what we do, we're one at this point. We're one of the largest independent community garden organizations in the country. So supporting around 200 community gardens and food for us. And what that means, what our role is, you know, I sometimes joke, we don't grow or distribute the food. Like, like, what we do is recreate the vessels for other people. Our mission is to provide the skills access and resources to grow healthy food in community and regenerate urban green spaces. So again, we don't grow or distribute it. So what we do is community typically will come to us and identify a site where they'd like to see a garden or a food forest, and I will explain food forests. And then we partner. We have a really nice relationship with landowner partners that include the city parks districts, school districts, housing authorities, and we're able to secure land through a license agreement. So that's one huge part of it, the fact that we have a legal agreement that protects the land, because the land tenure is something that can really get in the way of a sturdy, enduring community garden. So we put that in place. We have insurance, so we're able to apply insurance to all of our sites. We will typically, typically build the gardens, usually in partnership with the with the community in terms of funding. So we design and build the garden, but that happens in partnership with community. And then once the garden is up and running, we support the garden leadership. So, and we talk about our sort of secret sauce at Dug is very much the human infrastructure, and is having volunteer garden leaders at, you know, and all of these different sites to keep it going, the gardeners are just anybody from the community who wants to come in and grow food for themselves and their families. We sort of joke we can grow anything in our gardens that's federally legal. And plot fees typically cost about 40, $45 for you really, to have the plot honestly, for the whole year, even if you want to do season extension. And in addition to the plot fees, we ask that there's give back hours so you help care for the, you know, common areas. You do repairs, you do clean up days. Again, that's part of that community building model. So those are the community gardens we again, we have about 200 about 20,000 people sort of participate in in the gardens. Then we started three years ago, food forests, and that was just such a cool evolution, really building on the Dug model. Food forests are, they adhere to permaculture principles. So it's essentially a glorified orchard. So you plant fruit, nuts, Berry trees, bushes and vines, but in guilds, in computer, you know, with companion plants sort of beneficial, you know, redundancy and resiliency, instead of just an individual tree. In addition, because Colorado is so harsh, you know, we need all the help that we can get. And then over time, you go back and fill in, and they're really sort of evolve into these, like, dense plantings. The model is different with the food forest, though they're true community orchards, so anybody can come in and harvest and glean, and so it's a really different model, but it's given Dug a really nice opportunity to contribute to the tree canopy, to, you know, add to the biodiversity, and really focus on food access and providing, you know, widely available food to everybody in the community. From an operational perspective, they're they're actually smaller, easier to install, so we have a lot more flexibility, and we've typically installed them adjacent to our gardens, which also just really enhances biodiversity. So it's been a really, really fun project, in addition to, you know, to what we do.
Tiffany Owens Reed 19:03
So how much food do your gardens produce and what happens to it?
Linda Appel Lipsius 19:08
So right now, with the gardens alone, they produce about 650,000 pounds of food every year. And I like to say they produce about 650,000 pounds of hyper local, culturally relevant, nutrient dense food, because all that stuff's possible when you get to grow your own food. And then we do ask that 10% of what is grown is donated. So that means about 65,000 pounds of food is going into the food systems, to food banks, baskets out front, just donations to neighbors and community organizations once the tree so we are our food forest are still sort of in baby form. We plant bare, bare root trees so they're going to have a better chance of surviving. I mean, it's going to be like 10s of 1000s of pounds or hundreds of 1000s of pounds of food and fruit once those are producing and so we already have relation. In place with cleaning organizations and food banks, you know, to make sure that we're nothing's going to waste, you know, as well as just composting. But, yeah, so, lots and lots of food happens.
Tiffany Owens Reed 20:13
Are there any most common crops or what? What do people like to grow? What have you seen?
Linda Appel Lipsius 20:19
Yeah, so actually, going back to growing in Colorado and Denver, it's all kind of tied up, just because we do have such a harsh environment, it is a pretty limited band, right? So we're not growing mangoes, we're not growing avocados, you know, we grow peppers and tomatoes and corn and beans and zucchini and stuff that's kind of, you know, down the middle. We also do, you know, greens and those are always the favorite. You know, definitely peppers and tomatoes are the favorite on the fruit side of it. We also have a pretty limited band in terms of what is climate appropriate and regionally appropriate. So, and also, I forgot to mention, with the food forest, we do also partner with with the community to figure out what they want us to plant. And so we plant peaches and cherries and plums and pears and juju, though I can never remember what they're called, and then hazelnuts and raspberries. So yeah, it's a pretty, pretty wide, wide variety of food.
Tiffany Owens Reed 21:16
I bet that's kind of fun though, to be able to have to work within the constraints of what can actually grow, and then kind of see what happens and what and how people use the produce, rather than the experience of when you go to the grocery store and kind of have whatever you want. But there's some I feel like there's something like primarily satisfactory about that.
Linda Appel Lipsius 21:34
Oh, totally well. And it also, actually, if I could just interject one other thing, actually two other things, what this allows. And if you think about these gardens often, they're serving a lot of folks who live in apartments, a lot of folks who don't have access to land. We have all ranges of background and income, and so so many people are growing foods you've never even heard from, heard of that they're bringing from their homes. So you know, definitely, you know, we probably grow like 20 different kinds of eggplants and 50 different kinds of peppers. And it's so cool because, you know, these things are not available in the grocery store. If they were, they're way too expensive. They're not available from the seed catalog. So having that space to grow means you have continuity and connection to your homeland, to your heritage, to your ancestors, to your mom and your grandma. So it's a really cool kind of multi dimensional benefit. Yeah.
Tiffany Owens Reed 22:27
Okay. With so much abundance and seeing like the impact, just in terms of improving and increasing, like local food supply, I'm just curious. I kind of have two questions. Why do you think more cities aren't doing this? So let's start with that one. Like, I just, I live in a city here in Texas, I remember one of the first things I thought of when I got to Waco, it was like, huh, so many vacant lots, so much sun, so much like, things just grow crazy here. Like, it's always just wild. Like, you have to work to constantly keep things back, right? It just seemed very obvious to me that I was like, Man, this could really have, like, a strong it felt to me, I'm not. I don't know anything about how the agricultural industries work, so maybe I'm just a complete idiot when it comes to thinking about this. But it just seemed very obvious to me that there was such an opportunity to have a really strong local food supply scene here, and yet it doesn't seem like the kind of thing that is ever really prioritized. I'm just curious if you can speak to that and speak to maybe what like, Why do you think that is, and what could help us change that? In my head, that question was more eloquent, but it's actually pretty simple. Of like, you know, what do you think it could take to help cities see the value and re establishing this relationship with nature in a way that's so productive and so helpful to so many people and just so life giving?
Linda Appel Lipsius 23:57
Yeah, that is, that is a huge question. And there's just, there's so many tentacles I'll probably touch on, like three of 50, you know, I mean, I think, I think some of it goes just back. I think there's just, I think, intentional keeping people from having the means to provide for themselves and care for themselves and feed themselves. And there's, there's, there's a, I think a sort of warped benefit to creating this false reliance, you know, on conventional food. I think gardening has a reputation problem, whether that's just how it happened or that was also intentional. People look at it as real, sweet and cute and not as a serious means of food production. Not until 2018 did the USDA acknowledge urban agriculture, and within that community garden was in there. So it was like all of a sudden, 2018 we showed up. Even though this has been happening forever. You know, it's there's a lot of. Are liability concerns, I think, by cities too, especially around the food forest. It's like, you know, if we have people growing food on public spaces, what if somebody slips on a peach? You know, imagine what that, what that would do, right? I mean, never mind all the people that you're feeding. And, yeah, I think it's, it's, to me, it's a total head scratcher too. In some cases, there isn't a lot of land. So in some and where you're at Definitely not. Here, we're a little bit in the middle, you know. So in some cases, there's just not a lot of land, I get it. But in other cases, like Detroit, which is actually a real, real hotbed of urban agriculture, you know, they've been taking advantage of the spaces. And that's, you know, exactly how it should be. And so I think some of it is the city is cities are hesitant when it is a city program, or could be hesitant. I think some of it is what I mentioned is just the land tenure. It's just securing land. Is continuity of leadership. Is just having true community folks getting behind it. I think some of it is learned helplessness. It's like, you know, oh my gosh, we actually could totally feed ourselves and care for ourselves, but we can't, right? We don't know how, even though we do. And yeah, and so something that we've really been working on now is this is new, is this program called the urban garden project? It's not actually that new is to really reach out to organizations and even individual gardens across the country to figure out how to help them be more sturdy and help them grow and help them become a significant contributor to the food system. One last thing that I think is just really interesting to distinguish, because people think of urban Ag, and it's like, okay, you have farms and you have community gardens, and everyone thinks and farms are great, urban farms are wonderful, but that is a few people producing for many, whereas community gardens are many people, you know, producing for themselves. And they both totally serve a purpose. And I think people tend to sort of minimize the value of the other levers that community garden pulls. So it's food, but it's community and that, you know, the contribution that that makes to your overall health and well being as well. And then, you know, giving folks the the tools and the ability to have a positive impact on climate. You know, you're creating this incredible hub of biodiversity yourself, and it and it puts us sort of back in, you know, and having some control in the climate crisis. So I think it's, it's just so much more multi layered. And I don't think people really see that. They think community gardens real cute. We have other ways to use our spaces, like as parks that fewer people go into or, you know, and really just not, I think just valuing and understanding all that they offer.
Tiffany Owens Reed 27:42
I feel as well that there's probably some anxiety around like, what to do with all the stuff you grow, because I think so many of us are stuck in the grocery store model of like, I made my meal plan. I have my recipes. I know what I can they just go buy what you need, and then you cook and use it. And I know me personally, it's funny because I I'm not a gardener. I always think it would be nice to become one, but then I realized it's like, but what would I do if, like, I grew all these tomatoes, and I'm used to dealing with, like, four tomatoes at a time, so I feel like that. Could, you know, because I feel like gardening actually fits into a whole ecosystem and process of not just growing the food, but also knowing how to use it, preserve it, share it, cook it, save it. You know, it's like, there's all these other processes as well that we've just been completely detached from for so long. So I want, I feel like, yeah, that side of it could also maybe create some anxieties around, like, just this whole idea. I don't think that should stop us, but I'm just saying, I'm just putting that in there as well.
Linda Appel Lipsius 28:39
Well, totally, I mean, but even just growing, right? You know, we always talk about people who are sort of gardening curious, but they're like, scared to try it. And I think that's where it's like, I truly believe that we all know how to do this. I mean, we humans are meant to connect to the Earth. We're meant to grow our own food. We've got the knowledge. I also think that people, like everyone's learning, right? Our horticulturalist jungle, Judy here, you know, she knows she can name every single plant, but every year, she's surprised, right? Because, like, it's just, it's constant learning and constant changing depending on what's happening. And so I think that's it is like, we are all learning. People are like, I've got a black thumb. It's like a brown thumb. It's like, just keep going. Just keep trying. And then there's just so much information around soil health and things like that. But then the other thing like you're talking about is, if you have oversupply, where I go with and seeing this in practice is this abundance mentality, like, imagine what you would do if you had too much. How cool would that be? Right? Imagine the gifts you could give to your neighbors. Imagine the, you know, the canning, the preservation, the soups, the gazpacho you could make and freeze so that in the winter, when they're not producing, you've got, you know, sort of fresh, healthy sustenance. I mean, we're not, we're living in such a scarcity mentality that it's like, let's just get as much as we need. But, but gardens do that. I mean, I'm gonna have probably 5000 tomatillos this summer, and I. Use 100 of them, you know, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I get to do, like, gifts and jams and, you know, and they're my, you know, my holiday gifts and, and that's just a cool place to be, because they were like, we can, the earth can produce enough to feed all of us. It's a distribution problem. It's not a, not a production problem. So I think it's a nice opportunity to shift, you know, shift the thinking.
Tiffany Owens Reed 30:21
So I want to touch on something that you've been mentioning throughout this whole conversation about how these gardens also function as a community building space. And I think this is one of the biggest benefits of this whole model, and really tied to the strong towns conversation on cultivating resilience. Because I think resilience, it's partly financial, it's partly infrastructure, it's partly design, but it's hugely social, right? It's like, how well connected are people to each other? How can we come together to solve problems? How can we collaborate? And I think community gardens, one of the things that fascinates me the most about them is how they provide an opportunity for people to work together on an external goal that actually has all these internal benefits in terms of our own personal well being, but how connected we feel to other people around us. I have a whole spiel on community and how community can't really be its own goal. You actually need things to work on, and that's how you build community. But that's a little bit of a tangent. Anyway, when I think about community gardens, I'm like, Ah, this is like a perfect model, because you're working on an external goal together with all these people, and that's how, again, it gives you the space to build the connections with all those other people. What have you seen in terms of how these gardens have have provided that sense of community for people? Yeah, and I'm just curious, like, what we what you would add to, just to the community side of this whole conversation?
Linda Appel Lipsius 31:39
Yeah, well, at some point I would actually love to have a conversation about all this, because it's so it's so fascinating. And I think that the beauty of community gardens is it is so simple, right? This isn't like, gee whiz science. This is like, hey, let's grow some tomatoes, you know, like, it just doesn't get any easier or fundamental or foundational than than growing food together. And, yeah, and I like the external goal for your sort of internal benefit, it's just like, this is a political This is a chance for us to build something together that not only benefits, you know, us, but there's Beautification and there's benefits the whole community, but, but I think really at the core, and I think that's a lot of like, you say, what strong towns is about, too, is, you know, we become so isolated. You know, we don't know our neighbors. And you know, all the negative benefit, your negative things that are happening as a result of the epidemic of loneliness and our sedentary lifestyles and community gardening, like brings people, just brings people out of their homes. You know, you don't, honestly, you don't even have to talk to the guy with a plot next to you, but just being there next to, you know, next to somebody, and being in this joint, you know, sort of endeavor is so powerful and is so sort of like, brings joy and improves mood. And I was somebody was telling me about a study recently that was saying your mental health is actually better. It's good to have a handful of close friends, but your your mental health is better when you've got these so, you know, light connections to more people.
Tiffany Owens Reed 33:06
Yeah, the loose ties.
Linda Appel Lipsius 33:09
Yes! It's like you walk in and, you know, my anecdote is, I, you know, I live downtown, and I joined, we opened a new garden downtown, been there for 15 years. At that time, I didn't really know a lot of my neighbors, you know, just us. And when that garden opened, I met more neighbors than I had in the previous 15 years, because there just wasn't an invitation, an opportunity to come together. So the community side is huge.
Tiffany Owens Reed 33:33
Yeah, there's a category for social interaction that I think we I think I've actually written like hundreds of words on this for like, a separate project, so I've been thinking about this a lot. Been thinking about this a lot, but I think there's a category. I think for whatever reason, in our American culture, we've gotten used to, like, two categories of interactions, right? Maybe three close friends, strangers, and then kind of people you sort of kind of know. And there is a there's a category where, I think it's sort of like strangers you're in friendly proximity to, in a way, or kind of the loose tie, but it's the category of neighbor, essentially, where it's like they're not a close friend, but they're not a stranger, but you have enough contact that, like there's enough trust there where, like you kind of would help each other out If you needed it. And I think in the conversation around community, sometimes people feel like, well, if that that means everyone has to become a close friend. And I might actually know you'd probably be better off with a lot of neighbors, like really focusing on building up more neighbors, rather than thinking that to have community means that we've all talked about, like our childhoods and our backstories and our life dreams and our current struggles and our mental health, like it's like, no, actually, no, those are great, and it's great to have those kinds of friendships, but actually, I think what would actually make a bigger impact on your life is having more loose ties organized around meaningful projects. And I think this is where it kind of starts to. Spill over into just a conversation about our cities and civics in general, in the sense that we don't have problems we can solve together. And I think that, and then that's what I find so interesting about community gardens, because it's like one of the last areas where you actually have problems to solve together. But if you look at how our neighborhoods run and how our cities run, everything has been exported to an expert, or we've just or like, the citizen has kind of, like, cornered into this weird world of, like, community, sort of community engagement, maybe, maybe you can give a comment kind of, sort of when it comes to actually solving problems, like, there are very few opportunities to actually work with your neighbors to solve shared problems, and that's how you build community, right? In the sense of not necessarily everyone becoming your best friend, but meaningful loose ties with people you have proximity to. Um, that was a little bit of my soapbox on this, but I think, yeah, circling back like that, we need to remember that that category is super valuable, and it's okay if you're not best friends with your neighbor, neighbor. Like, that's the point. We actually all need a lot of non best friends, yeah?
Linda Appel Lipsius 36:10
I mean, and then that leads to, you know, this sort of permaculture principle around, you know, the strongest structure is a network. And, you know, and to your point, how we've outsourced everything, like, like, I feel like our sort of modern culture is just these, one way, right? One way, you know, relationships, connections, those are not stable, right? It's when you're when you're sort of, you know, connected and tied to all sorts of different points that is stable. That was, you know, I sort of think about, I run, and I, when I go trail running, you know when to the the wild, I always make a point of saying hi to everybody, just making eye contact, because I'm like, if I get eaten by a wolf, at least we don't know that we really have wolves, but if I get my Wolf, at least a few people have registered that I was there, right? So when they're looking, for me, they'll be like, oh yes.
Tiffany Owens Reed 36:57
I mean, when you think about it, it's a better story than something on a peach. You're like our friend Linda went down, but at least she went down on a trail by a wolf and not slipping on a peach. You know, if you have to pick a way to go out in Denver, I feel like.
Linda Appel Lipsius 37:12
Exactly, good point.
Tiffany Owens Reed 37:17
Um, glad we solved that. I know you've been up late wondering, like, how is this really going to play out. But like, now you know. No, you're right. Yeah, I like that. I like that as sort of almost like, I don't know what I say analogy, you know, if, like, we it's more just the eye contact saying hello, not necessarily. That's a category that matters just as much as having that running buddy who's with you all the time and you're talking for the whole 45 minutes, right? And I think so much attention goes into building those really deep ties that that expectation gets, like, transferred over to every to like so many other possible types of connections. And then there's just, like, this weird value hierarchy. And I don't know if you've read anything by Robert Putnam or mark Dunkelman or I think Malcolm Gladwell has even written about this a little bit, but I think one of the central points they're all making is, like, actually, we just need a lot more eye contact and hellos Not everything has to be a deep, robust conversation, and it's okay.
Linda Appel Lipsius 38:13
Totally. Well, I, you know, I have, like, I think every year I do this big sort of tirade, not really tirade, happy tirade, on on social media about that is a few years ago, I made a point of every interaction when I was going to a store, when I was doing anything, you know, you sort of jump into it. You just go in and put pausing and saying, How you doing today? And inevitably, people will, like, stop. They're like, Wait, you're talking to me, you know, you're asking me about myself. They smile and you like even just that simple thing of just like, taking the moment and saying hi and whatever it's like, it just made, I mean, it makes my day when it happens to me, but just as that simple say hi, smile, like it can actually turn your day around. And I agree, it's devalued.
Tiffany Owens Reed 38:55
Yeah, it humanizes your immediate environment, right? Because I think on a subconscious level, the outside world is a dangerous place. It's uncertain. It's dangerous. You don't know who you can trust. You don't know it's unpredictable. So I think taking those moments to make eye contact and say hello, I think on a psychological level, it actually starts to make the environment. It gives you more information about the environment you're in, and it can help you properly interpret like, Am I safe or am I not? Like, if you go i i go to Aldi, and I know all the cashiers just about and I know I noticed when one got a really cool haircut, and it cracked me up one day, because I go to Aldi, because a friend of mine got me hooked on going to Aldi instead of HEB, which, if you've been to Texas, you'll know. But anyway, I go all the time, and it's the same three cashiers, and I don't know all their names, but my, this friend of mine who got me hooked on going there, had a baby, and I just found myself, kind of embarrassingly, being like, Oh my gosh. Do you know this lady? I said her name. I was like, she just had a baby, so she's probably gonna come, and the cashier just kind of looks at me, like, Was I supposed to and then I kind of caught myself. I was like, oh, maybe she doesn't even know, but it was just in my head. It felt so normal. Because I was like, she comes all the time. We both come all the time. You we see you all the time. I'm sure you know who she is. She had the cutest baby. I'm buying this for her because she just had a and I'm sure she was like, why is this woman being so weird? But it was, it was sort of this, like, just gut reaction to, like, this place is safe. I know these people. I've seen them all the time, like, and so I think there's just reducing that uncertainty, and even if it's as simple as you don't have to have best, you know, deep conversations with all your neighbors, but knowing who lives where, and knowing that you said hello a couple times each month, you know you're not committing to bringing them dinner and hearing their whole life story. But the effect that can have on your perception of place, on your sense of personal safety, and like this, place is no longer as unpredictable or as uncertain, because I've met these people, and then imagine how that gets translated eventually into caring for that place and then advocating for that place, right? And that whole journey, I think you're right. It starts with eye contact and saying hello, like taking the time, right? Okay, I think we have, we have checked the happy tangents box for this podcast, which has to happen every episode. So I have one more big kind of question for you, but I just want to give you a chance. If you had anything you wanted to add to that before I go on.
Linda Appel Lipsius 41:13
Oh gosh. I think it's really just this sort of rallying cry, I think for community gardens to take their rightful place, you know, in the urban food system. And really, like, you know, reach out to Dug, you know, through the urban garden project, like, I think all of us working together and sharing best practices for these, for every single city you go into to find a huge, you know, community garden and food forest network, like, how incredible would that be, and how really transformational it would be for cities. So I think there's just a huge, huge opportunity. And then it's also the last thing on that is that gardens and food forests are wildly efficient from an economic perspective. So to install them, they're not in the scheme of things. They're not that much money. They're not as much as a pool or a tennis court or even probably a set of benches, and yet they deliver this out oxidized ROI. So it is so worth doing. And just, you know, let's figure out a way to, you know, show the powers that be and the landowners and the community that this is a totally worthwhile investment.
Tiffany Owens Reed 42:21
Why do community gardens die? Because I think I've seen some around town, and it makes me sad, because they just can't seem to keep going. Do you have any insight on on the kind of infrastructure, ecosystem, social ecosystem? Maybe that's needed to really help them keep going?
Linda Appel Lipsius 42:38
Yeah, I definitely do. So that's really what the urban gardens project is about, and it's really also about it's about promoting a centralized model. And why do they die? It's largely continuity and land security and land tenure. So what happens is a group of people will come together and be like, Hey, this is so exciting. And then they'll find a parcel of land that is maybe on private property or even city property, and then one of them has a baby, or one of them moves or, you know, and there's no continuity of leadership, or the landowner decides to build or do something else with the land, so it just goes away. So it's either, you know, sort of lack of interest, it fizzles and dies, or the or we lose the land. And so having more of a structure, having an organization like Dug that can put, you know, a legal document in place to secure the land, but most importantly, that identifies those garden leaders and provides the continuity. So when you know when this group of three, when two out of three or three out of three decide to move, that organization will be there, and that organization will go into the community, or go into the garden and say, Hey, who wants to do this? We will double support you to do it, to make sure that that space continues. And that really is most of, most of what happens. It's just they do fizzle, and people get so excited, but it is, you know, at times it's drudgery, and you know, you know, some of the bright, shiny stuff goes way over time, and they're more complicated than you think. So I think it's just thinking through those barriers. And even if you're a smaller organization, you can put a lot of those in place.
Tiffany Owens Reed 44:17
That's helpful. And I think it's probably helpful for anyone listening to this who's, like, feeling super inspired to also think about just like, the local context and the culture that you're working with them. Because I have a hunch, like for in Waco, that our culture is very Actually, in turn, like inside culture. I could be completely wrong on this. I say a lot of things very confidently that I'm like, I could be completely wrong. I have not but, you know, I can have fun with right? But I guess I've noticed with, like, trying to be, like, civically engaged and get involved. Like, I don't know if it's the heat, I remember doing an ice cream social once in the summer, and literally, no one came. I think two neighbors came, and I was like, there's, like, free ice cream here. And like, we passed out flyers. We told everyone to come. There were kids on like, we told the families with kids, and literally, like, no one came. And I just sometimes wonder if it's like, if there are sort of like, extroverted cultures and then introverted cultures in some cities that, when I lived in Brooklyn, like, we had community gardens and people, and I went a few times, and they seem to be pretty well populated and sustained. So I guess it's just sort of this, like X Factor pertaining to, like the culture of the place and like the patterns of life that govern how people spend their time. And I, I kind of wonder if that has something to do with it as well. Of like, what kind of helps some gardens keep going, versus not. I don't know, that's my theory.
Linda Appel Lipsius 45:47
A lot of times there's a champion, you know. I mean, I think that's really important, is that there's somebody who's going to push it through, or help, you know, like, connect the dots for people. I also think, I mean, you're, you know, your example, sort of Brooklyn versus Waco. I mean, I really think density is very beneficial. When I was in New York last time, it was like, we just all have to navigate each other, right? So it's like, everyone, the community, is on your mind everywhere you go. And so I think there's just sort of this inherent understanding that we are all, you know, connected and reliant on each other in a place in a dense city like, like New York, yeah, and some of it's probably culture. But I also really do think that, like, you can get anybody excited to grow their like, special peppers, you know, like a lot of it's just inviting people in and helping them overcome, you know, any sort of barriers or scary, you know how scary something is, yeah, yeah. But it's possible, but it's so intentional. I think to build that we really do have to be very intentional.
Tiffany Owens Reed 46:43
Um, you've talked about permaculture a bit, so I think it would be a great disservice if we did not talk about permaculture more before I let you go. Um, thinking about, I would just be curious to know what you what, what I'm what I'm curious about is this idea of transferability, like, what have you seen? You know, so at strong towns, we're always writing about, like, parking minimums and housing issues and parked and how wide the lanes are and highways and all these, really, in finance and all this stuff. And Chuck, in his book, he uses farming as, like, one of the analogies to help us understand, like, where we've gone wrong and how we've been approaching these issues in the American city, and I'm trying to remember the technical name for what he talks about, but it's a particular kind of farming where it's very it's hyper simplified, and so you kind of deplete resources really quickly, versus a more complex way of building. If Chuck is listening to this and being really upset that I'm not doing a good job of summarizing his idea. I apologize, but I think there's a lot to learn from the natural world with how we think about our cities and how we think about these issues. I'm just curious for you, like, what are like, one or two principles of permaculture that you find just really exciting and that you think could help us as we're thinking about these other issues that our cities are struggling with.
Linda Appel Lipsius 48:03
Yeah, so, so permaculture, there's 12 principles, and I actually have a different principle in my calendar every day. So just to sort of inspire, you know, what I'm doing and, and they're really just kind of, you know, lots of different angles. So the one that I always get really excited about is, I guess it's principle 11, use edges and value the marginal. And you know, what that's about is that, you know, when you think about in the natural setting, is the sort of riparian region which is between, you know, like, say, you've got a stream or a lake, and then you've got the, you know, the prairie next to it, where the innovation happens is where the water body needs the land. You know, it's where we have where it's not just static and stable on either side, but where they're forced to come together and they're forced to innovate. And I think that that's something that's incredibly inspiring. I think another one is obtain a yield. And that is the case, especially, I think, in work like nonprofit work, where, or really anywhere, where people just, you know, work and work and work and work, but you need to acknowledge that you have to care for yourself, right? I guess, like in the plane, you still you have to put the mask on yourself first, or you can't help other people. And so I think it's just this idea that, like we all, we have to take care of ourselves first. And if we're healthy and we're grounded, then we can contribute and we can give back. So I think that's pretty interesting.
Tiffany Owens Reed 49:25
Can you give us a third one, because this is very interesting.
Linda Appel Lipsius 49:29
A third one. Oh, let's see. Design from patterns to details. And that sort of goes along with this, observe and interact. And so I do this with folks on my team. We've got, like, a new project where people want to go in and find the solutions right away, you can't, like, step back, step back, and look holistically at what is happening and sit with it for a minute before you go into solutions. So it's really just acknowledging that, like, when you're new in a situation, you have to open the aperture. You have to. It with it, you have to, like, live through some ups and downs before you can actually contribute. And in our culture, you know, in our world, we're just so eager to solve and to be right. And so I think that's another one that really informs, you know, my approach, but, but the whole why I think, from a culture is the last language of hope, because this just all makes sense, you know, this just calms you down. This, this helps you value your you know, it's an abundance mentality. It helps you value everybody around you. It helps you value the planet. And it really is regenerative. It means that, I think that the thinking behind Permaculture is that humans are meant to live on this planet. We just need to do it better. We just need to do it regeneratively. And if we, if we do that, you know, we will thrive, and we will be a contributing member of our sort of planetary society.
Tiffany Owens Reed 50:52
Must think that we're wearing our like linen, you know, oversized shirts, and sipping our like super organic matcha and our beat and wearing sunglasses, everyone we're not, we're totally normal.
Linda Appel Lipsius 51:06
Yeah, that's so funny. Okay. No, go ahead. It's like, this is also an opportunity for, like, you know, a branding over overhaul, like, all this stuff just makes sense in a sensible and doesn't have to live in the sort of Lulu space. And just had to put that plug in.
Tiffany Owens Reed 51:23
Yeah, exactly, right. Well, it gets me thinking about, yeah, a I definitely now want to learn the 12 principles of permaculture. You've definitely inspired me. So I hope you can check that off your list for today, of like, inspire one more person to take a class in permaculture. But it just hearing what you're saying just makes me think that when I've, you know, the exposure I've had to the conversation around American urbanism and how our biggest challenges, our lack of resilience, our inherent fragility, you know, one thing I always go back to, I tend to be a big ideas person, where I'm always like, what's the fundamental, like framework or driving belief here, or the first principle, so to speak. I find myself doing that all the time. I don't know why, but I've learned to accept it. But as you're explaining this, it seems to me like you're like this framework. You could call it regenerative urbanism, in a way, it's providing like a whole different framework for thinking about these challenges we have, right? Because I think at the end of the day, like our urban challenges are framework problems. They're like paradigm paradigmatic problems more than they are resource problems or system or like, I guess people call this systems thinking. Maybe that's the closest we have to it. And it seems to me that if you think about cities as ecosystems, then it makes a lot of sense to look to natural systems and some of like these principles that you're explaining to help figure out creative solutions for moving forward. And it seems to me that part of the breakdown and what's happened with our cities is that we shift it from an ecological framework to a mechanical one that's and we've derived all of our metaphors and our language and our frameworks for solving problems from machines, not from growing living things.
Linda Appel Lipsius 53:07
Well, and also money, right? If something can't generate revenue, it's not valued, right? It's like, and if you look at like, people don't make I think that's another reason why community gardens haven't sort of risen to the top. Of risen to the top, is there's no commercial benefit to it. And, you know, and I think that's it. That's a huge thing. And, but, yeah, I like your sort of idea of a framework problem. And what comes to mind is, mind is trees and like the heat equity, the heat equity score, or the tree equity score. Sorry, I don't know if you're familiar with that, but it's, you know, it's measuring tree cover in each city, and it's a holistic approach. I think that's the other thing, is that we're so linear and we don't look at these holistic approaches. And so you look at what happens in a tree lined neighborhood versus one that has no trees. It affects your health. It affects your well being. It affects crime rates, it affects housing values, it affects everything. It's just trees, right? Like, why don't we have trees all over the city? And it's because we're not looking at those other factors. We're not looking at the impact on the health system. We're not looking at the impact on the education system. We're not looking at the impact on climate and air conditioning and all the things that go into it. So I think it's just it is so it is intentional, it is all fixable. I mean, I know this is, that's a huge, broad generalization, but, yeah, I think, I think we just look at it creatively and holistically and put value in the things that don't have a monetary value, because they do. You know, my favorite business school word externalities, right? It's like there are externalities for everything. And if we actually quantify the benefits of community garden, which we actually are trying to do, we're, I'm working with somebody at CU Denver to build this well being index, this community garden well being index that measures food community and climate resilience, how do you quantify that to show that the. Is, even though there's no, there's no transactional value here, but there is sort of systemic and, you know, holistic value to it that lifts the whole city up for the neighborhood.
Tiffany Owens Reed 55:09
I'm so glad y'all are doing that, but part of me is also sad that you have to, you know, it's kind of like, I feel like I see more and more studies. That's like, we finally found a way to tell you that this is good for you, and this like one language that, you know, the corporate financial language, sort of, I don't know, sometimes I'm like, I feel like we've just lost touch with a way of looking, of like, I'm not saying that thinking about money and cost and efficiency and externalities, all of that the economic way of thinking makes sense, or this more transaction like it's necessary. I think it's one of many ways of thinking about decision making and and how to live well together as human beings. I think it's important. But I also feel like it's like, what you're saying, it's become kind of the only way to like, think about anything, to talk about any of our shared problems.
Linda Appel Lipsius 55:56
Totally with you. And I always sort of joke. It's like we here, we are proving what we know to be true, like, you know, but I know it that is a sad but true fact right now.
Tiffany Owens Reed 56:10
You said something at the start of this conversation about how, I guess I just want to wrap up by pointing more attention to this concept. I feel like, if there is one thing to take away from this. It has to do with what you said earlier about how I think maybe it's maybe just touched on it with this idea of thinking holistically. And I see this specifically a lot of times in conversations around transportation, where there's, there can be so much emphasis on just like, one aspect, like, like, Okay, we just need to fix the bike side and and I think one thing that's helpful, it's like, what would it look like to talk about this as though transportation is one system within a collection of systems, and let's talk about all of those systems. Like, transportation is not just a transportation problem. It's a housing problem, right? It's also like a like a density issue. It's also a small business problem, because you need small businesses located close enough to where people live, so that it makes sense for them to even bike there. And then you need a certain level of density to support those businesses. And you need the biking infrastructure, right? So you don't just need a bike lane, you need three other systems to work together. And so I think what you were saying about it's not just one problem with one solution. It's not that simplified. It's actually more complex than that. And it's, it's multiple, multiple systems, kind of layered together. And I think most of the solutions in our cities would probably be systems, solutions, not like one, one magic thing that's going to fix it all.
Linda Appel Lipsius 57:38
Totally Yes, agree, that's what. That's what you guys are all up to right, strong towns.
Tiffany Owens Reed 57:47
Well maybe we'll have to bring you back on and we can go through all the 12 pillars of permaculture principles, because I feel like we would have a lot of fun nerding out about, how could this, how could this help us think about our cities better? In the meantime, let's wrap up with my favorite last question, tell us a little bit about your neighborhood and or your city, whatever direction like to take with this question. And what are two to three places you like to recommend people check out if they come through Denver to get a slice of local life.
Linda Appel Lipsius 58:13
Yeah, so I live downtown, which is something I am so I love so much. I love the walkability of it, and yeah, and even though I don't necessarily talk to my neighbors, I like knowing that they're there. And I raise my kids downtown, and that's something that I also has given them confidence and resilience and ability to sort of exist in this world, feeling safe and secure, which is something that I think it's really great. Yeah, and so den, you know, coming to Denver, come downtown, and live in lower downtown, and it's like the old historic part, we've got this view like so much is popping up and in the area, and there's a lot of great museums, Union Station, the Museum of Contemporary Art, amazing restaurants, you know, some of my favorites. You know, the kitchen, and all the all the locals. So, yeah, come visit in low dough.
Tiffany Owens Reed 59:05
Okay, so you have to give me the name of one restaurant, a museum and a coffee shop.
Linda Appel Lipsius 59:11
A restaurant Museum. Okay, the coffee shop is going to be little owl. The restaurant is going to be the kitchen, and the museum is the Museum of Contemporary Art, the MCA, and all of those are within a one block radius. So there you go, get for coffee.
Tiffany Owens Reed 59:30
Awesome. Go do some arting, and then go grab a bite at the kitchen. There you are, Linda, it's been an amazing conversation here with you today. Thank you so much for for spending time with us, to our audience. Thank you so much for listening, for joining us on this fun ramble through the world of gardening and cities and permaculture. Hope you enjoyed it. If there's someone in your community who you think would make a great guest for this show, someone who you think can. Put up with my rabbit trails, then please let me know using the suggested guest form. That's how we learned about Linda. That's how we learned about so many of the guests that we bring on here. So please don't hesitate to let us know. And yeah, Linda, thank you. Thank you for coming on and sharing your story and your insights with us.
Linda Appel Lipsius 1:00:15
Thank you so much for having me. This was a delight.
Tiffany Owens Reed 1:00:19
All right. Well, if you're listening to this, thank you for joining us for another episode. I'll be back soon with another conversation. In the meantime, keep doing what you can to build a strong town.
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Tiffany Owens Reed is the host of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast. A graduate of The King's College and former journalist, she is a New Yorker at heart, currently living in Texas. In addition to writing for Strong Towns and freelancing as a project manager, she reads, writes, and curates content for Cities Decoded, an educational platform designed to help ordinary people understand cities. Explore free resources here and follow her on Instagram @citiesdecoded.