West Des Moines Community Garden Spots Quickly Claimed

If you waited to claim one of the limited spots West Des Moines Parks and Recreation is opening for community gardening, you’re too late.

All 10 spots in West Des Moines’ first stab at community gardening have been claimed. The community garden opens this spring at Jordan Creek Park, 300 50th St.

Recreation Superintendent Todd Seaman said this year’s pilot project is intended to gauge interest in community gardening, the Des Moines Register reported.

Community gardening is a growing trend in the Des Moines metro and across the country. According to the American Community Gardening Association, some of the benefits include:

• Improves the quality of life for people in the garden
• Provides a catalyst for neighborhood and community development
• Stimulates social interaction
• Encourages self-reliance
• Beautifies neighborhoods
• Produces nutritious food
• Reduces family food budgets
• Conserves resources
• Creates opportunity for recreation, exercise, therapy, and education
• Reduces crime
• Preserves green space
• Creates income opportunities and economic development
• Reduces city heat from streets and parking lots
• Provides opportunities for intergenerational and cross-cultural connections

Seaman said the community garden plots will open next month once the soil has a chance to dry. City staff will prepare the soil for planting, which will occur in late April or early May.

“The area where the gardens will be established needs to dry out so our staff can get in and prepare the soil for the gardeners,” Seaman said. “Our goal is to have it ready to start planting by sometime in late April or early May.”

City officials are learning that West Des Moines residents take gardening seriously. Earlier this year, officials flirted – briefly – with the idea of banning front-yard gardens after one resident complained it was an eyesore.

Residents spoke out in shout streams on West Des Moines Patch and other online media.

“Gardening is great for individuals and great for communities,” Courtney Tompkins commented on a story after city officials reconsidered the ban. “This is just insane to me that they're even discussing it. Gardening is GOOD. And property owners should have the right to do as they wish on their own property!"