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Great Outdoors Colorado grant would fund community garden irrigation

John Colson
Post Independent Staff
Glenwood Springs, CO Colorado

CARBONDALE, Colorado – The local food movement got a boost from the town government this week, in the form of approval for a Great Outdoors Colorado grant application to build a second community garden.

The Carbondale Board of Trustees on Tuesday approved a $45,000 GOCO grant, primarily to pay for an irrigation pump and piping system that will bring water from a town ditch to the garden site.

The trustees directed recreation director Jeff Jackel to take charge of the grant application and submit it by the March 2 deadline, Jackel said on Wednesday.



The garden is to be laid out at the southern edge of the Third Street Center property (formerly Carbondale Elementary School), and is to contain roughly 60 garden plots to be rented out to local gardeners.

The existing community garden, located adjacent to Crystal Meadows Senior Housing, contains 22 plots. Of these, 15 of are reserved for residents of the senior housing complex, according to community garden organizer Tami Stroud.



(Disclosure: Tami Stroud is the wife of Post Independent reporter John Stroud.)

Stroud noted that the state requires a 25 percent local match, or $15,000 of the overall project cost of up to $60,000, for the project to be eligible for the GOCO grant.

“We’ve already got that,” Stroud said. The project has received grants from the town, the Aspen Skiing Co. Environment Foundation and Fiskars Tools, plus in-kind donations.

According to a memo to the trustees from Jackel, the idea for a second community garden has been around since 2009.

Initially, Stroud said, the idea focused on using a site that is part of the Carbondale Nature Park, a riverbottom area on the northeast side of town.

But when the Third Street Center site came up, she said, the focus shifted.

A site plan on file with the town shows the location of the proposed garden plots, just south of the PAC-3 music venue.

The irrigation water, Stroud said, is to be pumped from a ditch junction at Weant Boulevard and Highway 133, and the piping will serve the entire Third Street Center park area, not just the garden plots.

If the GOCO grant is awarded, Stroud added, construction of the project could start by late summer or early fall.

In other action, the trustees:

• Approved liquor licenses for two special events, a Ducks Unlimited fundraiser at The Orchard Church of Carbondale on Saturday, March 3, and the Green is the New Black Fashion Show on March 9-10 at the Carbondale Rec Center.

• Denied a request from developer Frieda Wallison, asking that the town waive certain consultant charges assessed by the town for her development project, Thompson Park.

jcolson@postindependent.com


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