Wasatch Community Gardens Pivots to Serve Community

Posted By Salt Lake County ZAP
May 06, 2020

With Salt Lake County residents sticking close to home as the country collectively weathers a pandemic, Wasatch Community Gardens (“WCG”) is rising to meet the Salt Lake community’s increasing demand for home gardening education and locally produced food. Indeed, this isn’t a phenomenon specific to Salt Lake; gardening is experiencing a surge of popularity across the country (just read here, here and here), and we at WCG want you to know we stand ready to serve!

WCG is no stranger to serving aspiring and seasoned gardeners and veggie growers in the Salt Lake Valley. Affectionately referring to ourselves as “the little nonprofit that CAN,” we celebrated 30 years of empowering people to grow and eat healthy, organic, local food last year. Since 1989, WCG has provided children, adults, and families in Salt Lake County with access to land and education for growing and eating fresh produce, while building and nurturing community connections through gardening and healthy food.

You are likely to have driven past one of the 17 community gardens we operate throughout Salt Lake County. These gardens serve diverse community members, all joined by the common desire of growing their own food. Many of our community gardeners report that their garden plots serve as their key source of nutritious food during the growing months, and we are pleased to make this possible in this particular time of need.

As is the story for many local businesses and nonprofits, WCG has had to adjust its sails for a number of its programs to continue to serve the Salt Lake community in this era of social distancing. That said, we are hustling, getting creative, and bringing many of our services online. Read on for opportunities to join us in getting your hands in the soil.

• Educational workshops - WCG offers 40 workshops from April through October, allowing community members to learn from our passionate and expert educators about a wide range of topics, from soils to organic pest management to tomato growing. Click here to view the line-up! While we have had to cancel many of our offerings in April and May, we presented our “Growing Great Tomatoes” class for tomato-lovers online on April 18, and have the recording available for you HERE. We also have available for you "Increasing Our Resilience Through Organic Veggie Gardening" as a recorded online webinar that you can access HERE.
  
  
• Plant Sale at our Green Phoenix Farm - We are proud to organize the “Best Little Plant Sale in Utah” on an annual basis. To keep our community healthy, we moved the annual plant sale to an online format! The plant sale was a big success this year, with all pick-up slots filled after the sale opened online on April 30th. Pick-ups will take place in early May for those who reserved a spot.

We know that community building around healthy, organic, local food happens most effectively in person, but without that option, we're eager to connect with the Salt Lake community in the best way we can. This is true whether you are a new gardener, a green thumb, a student, a refugee, a hobby gardener, or someone who relies on gardening for your food supply.

Please do reach out to us with any needs or questions you may have during this unusual time, and we encourage you to get out to the garden - whatever that space may look like for you. It’s the best medicine there is. 

Wasatch Community Gardens is funded in part by residents of Salt Lake County through the Tier II category of the ZAP program. If you would like to learn more about WCG and the opportunities they have coming up, please visit their website.