The answer to this question, from my perspective, may surprise you. It’s relationships! And that’s the stuff that Transition Initiatives are all about.

In 2009, our Transition Initiative, Transition Westminster/Arvada/Broomfield (or Transition WAB for short) sponsored the Broomfield Community Permaculture Garden. We used land donated by the Presbyterian Church of Broomfield to build 21 sheet-mulch keyholes and plant a wide variety of herbs, vegetables and fruit trees. In total, we had 26 volunteers that put in 1 – 60 hours over the 2009 growing season.

We counted the effort to build the sheet-mulch keyholes and to plant, but we didn’t count the summer babysitting and the fall harvest time. What we did count amounted to 266 human-hours, but that’s not the best part. What I find interesting, and valuable, is my new relationships that came as a direct result of this gardening effort. These “volunteers” are now some of my best friends. People I have learned to trust. People I could talk to about the most frightening of subjects—like peak-oil, debt spiral and species extinction—and the most joyous of subjects—like the worm I found in the soil, the beauty of a single zucchini blossom, or the joy I saw in a little girl’s eyes when I showed her where sunflower seeds came from. Put a price on that!

Here’s a photo of the garden with a rainbow over the City Hall in the background.

Transition WAB got its official “initiative” status on December 17 last year, but by that time we had put in a full year’s effort at building community resilience. There were more than 60 separate 2009 events either attended by or sponsored by our group. We taught classes, presented films and held pot-lucks, all necessary activities. But I think our most needed and successful “event” was building a garden and growing stuff together. Our sense of food security is an innate need that we all share. Growing food gave us a whole Spring, Summer and Fall worth of excuses to get together, work together, overcome obstacles together, count on each other and learn trust. Truth is, I’m even promoting gardening events in January. It may not work out, but it’s keeping us connected, even if all we do is argue about whether a January gardening event is nutty!

An important observation I want to share is that Transition WAB has a sense of place. Transition WAB may have this advantage that some other initiatives don’t have. We have a garden. It’s at 350 Main St. We called it the Broomfield Community Permaculture Garden. And now, we’re building a second sense of place at the Crescent Grange where we are holding our classes and films etc. But most importantly, I think, we’re building another garden at the Grange. We’ll call it the Crescent Grange Community Permaculture Garden. If I had to pick one secret ingredient that might give Transition initiative A an improved chance of success over Transition initiative B, it would be a sense of place. So, I’ll leave you with that to think about. My encouragement is find a place and start a garden.

In 2009, we used about ¼ of an acre to build 21 sheet-mulch keyhole beds and planted most of them. We also planted 8 fruit trees, apples and plums, of which maybe 4 lived. We used about 47,000 gallons of water, using our drip system, and were able to pay the church $150 (which more than covered that water) using the funds we raised selling produce. We harvested all the produce our volunteers wanted for themselves plus were able to give some produce to our church friends and give several hundred pounds of produce to FISH Inc., which provides food for the needy in Broomfield. We estimate that the total produce from the garden came to about 2000 lbs. In all, from what I was able to track, we spent about $3,000 to make this happen. We are thrilled with our 2009 results and will be back at the Presbyterian Church doing it again in 2010. We should be able to produce about the same amount for much less money as many of the up-front costs are done. In 2010, we will be expanding our Community Permaculture Garden over at the Crescent Grange, 7901 W. 120^th Ave, Broomfield.

Transition WAB is the 53^rd official Transition Initiative in the USA. We provide many activities all centered around regaining the connections among our community members which builds community resilience and self-reliance. We would love for you to join any or all of our activities. Find more information about us and our events at transitioncolorado.ning.com/group/transitionwestminster.