Linda Kiker has helped to turn Civic Center Park into a farm over the last 16 years.
Back in 2008, she and a collection of volunteers set out to feed people and provide a venue for human connection. What started as a small garden grew substantially over the last decade, both in area and in social power, with rows of produce spreading out in the middle of the sprawling park.
“It began with a community collaboration, wondering how to engage people, how to connect people, feeling that loneliness was at the root of much of the ills of our modern society,” she told Denverite as rain fell over her plots on Tuesday morning. “This was the medium, and it has an incredible output — that you can have food to share.”
The garden, which is managed by the organization Grow Local Colorado, now produces a literal ton of lettuce, tomatoes, beans, strawberries and more each year.
But next year’s harvest will be different. The garden is leaving Civic Center Park to make way for a major renovation. The city has provided new space in Benedict Fountain Park, in Five Points, for next season.
The Civic Center gardens have been a wild success.
The founders of Grow Local Colorado originally imagined a garden at the Governor’s Residence. But they never heard back from state officials, so they turned instead to John Hickenlooper, who was then the mayor of Denver.
Barbara Masoner was part of that early effort. They first asked Hickenlooper to provide space at his own home.
"He said, 'That's a great idea. Instead of doing it at my house, let's do it in a public place,'" she recalled in an earlier interview. "Without asking Parks and Rec, he just said, 'Yeah you guys can have one of the spots here.'"
In 2019, Masoner reported Grow Local’s plots yielded about 400 pounds of produce. Kiker said that exploded in 2020, when officials offered more space in Civic Center as COVID-19 shut the city down.
Kiker said the pandemic highlighted Denver’s issues with food insecurity and broader societal isolation — and, crucially, how a garden could be a solution to both problems.
“When I started this work, I was just as distanced as many people are, isolated in their work life and their home life,” she told Denverite. “Now I'm growing food and I'm more connected and more aware of my community than I ever was.”
The garden’s food is donated to food pantries and shelters around Denver.
What’s happening at Civic Center?
Civic Center Park renovations will begin this autumn, said parks spokesperson Stephanie Figueroa.
The city is spending about $18 million on the first phase of the project, turning the park’s Greek Amphitheatre into a “premier outdoor performance venue,” revamping its central corridor for bigger outdoor markets and creating a “uniquely Denver destination” on its west side. The Downtown Development Authority recently set aside $30 million for park upgrades, too.
Construction crews will temporarily need the space where the garden is. But the city also wants to try different plantings in the area, so it is asking Grow Local to end its Civic Center project. Though the vegetables were a powerful spectacle in the summer, the beds turned into dirt squares after the harvest.
“We’re kind of shifting the palette in Civic Center to be more of a perennial aesthetic, more annual and native stuff that will be prettier throughout the year,” she said.
Kiker said she’s satisfied the project will continue in Benedict Fountain Park next year, but she’s still a little sad to leave Civic Center Park.
“It's familiar, and you get tied to the land and the flow and what grows here best and the small rabbits that live here and the hawk that visits us,” she said. “And people absolutely love seeing the flowers and the vegetables together. They're always delighted.”
Benedict Fountain Park is at 20th Avenue and Logan Street.
Volunteers made their last harvest on Tuesday before the big move.
It rained all morning, but a couple dozen people gathered anyway to glean what they could from the garden’s final season.
They picked through vines and leaves, uprooted cabbages and snipped pea pods from their stalks.
Marya Skotte said she had never noticed the bounty before joining the group this year.
“I had no idea. I came down here for Pride, came down here for all the big music festivals,” she said. “It's really cool to see it in action at our capital, in the center of the state.”
Kiker said the project has pulled about 500 volunteers to the park annually over the last few years. She got on a figurative “soapbox” as they worked, hammering home why this was worth the effort, even on a rainy day.
“Most of our food travels an average of 1,500 miles. And in that time, the food is losing its nutrition. It's not picked fresh and it's not consumed,” she said.
“Our food is out within hours — single-digit hours. Every garden that we operate has a recipient within two miles. We try to reduce our carbon footprint, getting it there, and the time it waits to be consumed. That's the value of placing these smaller spaces closer to people who really need it. It's better to plunk yourself down, understand a community and their needs and give that to them.”
She’s hopeful the gardens’ new home in North Capitol Hill will, someday, yield as much as they have in Civic Center Park. But Kiker said she plans to start small next season, then see where things grow from there.
