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Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Central Wasatch Commission

02:48 The Mountain Accord and Environmental Stewardship

05:55 Summit Community Gardens: A Community Hub

09:05 Connecting Kids to Food and Agriculture

11:53 Adapting to High Elevation Gardening

14:38 Soil Health and Sustainable Practices

17:25 Education and Community Engagement

20:26 Conclusion and Future Directions

Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:00.238)
Welcome to In the Wasatch, a podcast created by the Central Wasatch Commission. I’m your host, Ben Kilborn. The CWC is an intergovernmental entity dedicated to protecting the Central Wasatch Mountains through canyon transportation improvements, pathways for concentrated development, environmental protections, and recreational stewardship. You can think of the CWC as the table everyone sits at.

where real conversation happens so we can find real solutions to real issues. This podcast continues those conversations and brings them to you so you can get involved. You’ll hear from stakeholders, commissioners, and others who love and want to preserve the mountains for generations to come. As we gather Wasatch stories, profiles, and expertise, we hope to establish this podcast and the CWC generally as a hub for finding belonging,

in the central Wasatch. After all, it’s the mountains that make this place what it is, and we’re all part of it.

Speaker 2 (01:10.488)
I think a really good place to start this episode is just to revisit the Mountain Accord because I think what Summit Community Gardens is doing is just right in line with that original vision. And the original vision of the Mountain Accord and of course then the mission of the Central Wasatch Commission is to protect the Central Wasatch Mountains for future generations by balancing this place’s four systems. Through collaboration with elected leaders, stakeholders, and the public, we seek

long-term recreational stewardship solutions, transportation solutions, and economic models that all prioritize environmental responsibility of the central Wasatch Mountains. Summit Community Gardens and Eats are doing exactly that, connecting Summit County residents and especially kids that future generation to what it really means to live in these mountains. So for the second consecutive year,

Summit Community Gardens has been awarded a grant through CWC’s short-term grants program for their environmental education program. They connect kids to the process of growing food in rocky clay soil at more than 6,600 feet above sea level. And what’s the result? Citizens with a knowledge of soil health, weather, climate, and native vegetation, and fire-wise planting, and simply how to grow things in the central Wasatch. It’s a

undeniable that increased local knowledge results in care for a place and when people care for the place where they live as Wallace Stegner once told us they tend to stick around and there’s almost nothing more beneficial to the central wasatch or really any place than a population who is invested and therefore wants to stay through thick and thin

We met Summit Community Gardens executive director Helen Natal at the garden and she walked us through bee-laden flowers, collaborative areas where kids were harvesting sugar snap peas, the La Milpa plot, and even her own plot. So come take a walk with us and learn how the Central Wasatch is benefiting now and in the future from the short-term grant Summit Community Gardens received from the CWC.

Speaker 1 (03:17.582)
So my name is Helen Nadel. I’m the executive director of Summit Community Gardens and Eats. We are a nonprofit here in Park City that’s focused on food education, food access, and really gathering, bringing people together to engage in this space and really providing a welcoming space for everyone in the community. And we are really excited to welcome folks here. This space is county land. So we have

We are 1.5 acres. We are the only public community garden in Summit County. And we provide about 134 beds, 4 by 16 with sustainable drip irrigation.

lot of good support in building soil to about 120 plot runners every year. And that’s just one of the many ways that the garden is used by the community. As I said, are on county land. We sit on a 10 acre parcel that is zoned for agriculture, space and recreation. And we are…

So excited to be here today. We have about 30 children here with us. You may see plot runners going in and out. We’re going to be harvesting for the food pharmacy, which is a program we run with the Christian Center of Park City and the People’s Health Clinic to make sure that folks who are experiencing food insecurity and chronic disease have access to food. think a lot of us know food is medicine, so that’s a really important program that we run here. And the kids are going to be harvesting some peas for the food pharmacy. We’ll be delivering that food tomorrow.

Commit.

Speaker 2 (04:49.358)
And then tell us about the grant you received and what that’s being used.

feel incredibly fortunate to have gotten a grant from the Central Wasatch Commission, really focusing on environmental stewardship and our environmental education with children. So during camp we see about, during summer I should say, we see about 350 kids both in our camps, which are week long.

And then also during the school year, we see about 2000 children up in Park City schools, Summit County schools and some schools also in Wasatch County, really trying to connect kids to the food system.

how food grows, agricultural tidbits about that, connecting them to the food system, and then doing some cooking and nutrition education with them. It’s really a sort of a seed to soil program where we are helping kids understand the entire food cycle from seed to compost and soil.

Show us around.

Speaker 1 (05:43.596)
Yes, love to. So the first space that we see as we enter, this is a spot for perennial pollinators, for an urban sensory garden, and also for Firewise garden. And we just want to make sure that anybody who comes in, again, we get folks who are casual visitors from Summit County, it’s open land available to.

anyone to enjoy. We want people to really understand what are some plants that they could actually have in their home that would bring pollinators into their space and really highlighting the importance of native species. I think we all kind of really know the way that native plants are.

important for our ecosystem but also important for our economy and so really trying to highlight those messages you know just as people walk in. Around the outside of the garden you’ll see a bunch of our plot runner beds as well as some spaces some sensory spaces that we’re developing. We’ve got our compost station which we actually built last year with the help of CWC and are continuing to have that going. We are really trying to be a zero waste place so

All of our weeds actually go through momentum, are being recycled. And then we’ve got our own compost going as well. And then in the center of the garden, that’s where our staff is growing for the food pharmacy. We’ve got two staff who are full time during the season. Last year we grew about 2,000 pounds of food for distribution. Yeah, it’s also a space, I mentioned kind of the welcoming programs. We’ve got a space called La Milpa, which is where we partner with Artes de Mexico in Utah.

and folks who are from the Latinx community here in Park City, as well as lots and lots of other people throughout the community, learn more about native and indigenous growing practices. We’ve got corn, beans, and squash growing there, as well as tomatillos, tomatoes, marigolds, chiles, lots of flowers, and lots of other crops, something called calites, which is a delicious green that is,

Speaker 2 (07:39.486)
that you should show us that.

Come and take a look. So it’s called lamb quarters here. I think a lot of folks may think of it as a weed, but actually in indigenous community, it is a great specialty crop. So that is growing right here. We’ve also let, so this is Calites. We’ve let some radish.

plants go to seed rather than so we harvested some of those but we also are letting them go to seed. This is actually we learned a really important delicacy in Mexico. This is the seed pod of a radish. You taste it. It tastes just like a radish. know and obviously you know we talk with kiddos about like how we would harvest and eat the roots but you can let a plant go to seed and go to flower right so. Yeah please I mean I’d love to share them with you. They’re delicious. I’ll try. Yeah.

You those raw or do you want to them?

Speaker 1 (08:32.064)
You can see the campers are walking by. We’re going to be harvesting some peas for the food pharmacy. There’s one for you. It’s a little sharp, so you gotta like radishes.

But kids will taste these. They’ll taste also the radish flowers, which taste like radishes, but that sense of kind of the whole plant is really important for kids to understand, you know, when they’re eating a salad, they’re eating leaves, right? And depending on what else is in that, they might be eating roots or flowers, all kinds of things. So we really want to connect kids to that sense of agriculture, how food grows. really feel like that is such an important component of food and what we eat really can be an important

way of connecting kids to the land, stewardship, understanding how important the soil is in order to have healthy food. So I think we’re going to be getting kids right now are in the center area. We do have for our plot runners, it’s a community tool area. We often have gatherings there where, you know, important part of the community garden is building community. And so I think they’re going to be getting some instruction about.

picking peas and how to do that. There’s an area of the garden beyond the La Milpa beds called the snacking garden, which we established this year. And it’s sort of a little microcosm of the whole garden in terms of what’s growing seasonally. So campers and their families can harvest from there, cook from there, snack from there. But we also welcome plot runners. know, if they needed a little bit more on a cilantro or dill or sugar snap peas today, that’s what’s growing. What’s available next week. We’ll have tons of beets, carrots.

think kiddos have already started harvesting some of those. That was really fun yesterday. They pulled lots of carrots up out of the ground and were delighted. We planted rainbow carrots because we thought that would be really fun for them and it was for them to see that carrots come in lots of different colors.

Speaker 2 (10:22.904)
I’m curious how the growing season differs here compared to like Salt Lake Valley being what 2000 feet higher or something like that.

That is such a great question. Last year we had frosts, hard frosts, in June, July 4th, and in August. wow. And so it requires, this year we did have a hard frost literally right after Father’s Day, which is kind of traditionally when we would plant up here.

gotta be ready to

We are ready to cover Yeah, mean we had a, you know, kind of a crew of volunteers come in and cover everything. being being nimble on your toes in that way, things go in the ground later and they, harvest them earlier. We typically like to see a 65 DTM or date to maturity for the crops that we have. Things that do great up here are things like, you know, like I said, sugar snap peas, root screens. But we have found, you know, for example, the La Milfa project, we found

varieties of corn that have a short growing season. We decided that rather than grow the traditional beans that would be grown, we’re actually growing fava beans this year. And again, in consultation with Artistic Mexico, we all just felt like we need to adapt, right? So we are adapting here to the climate. That’s Yeah. So we have, this is sort of a perennial bed where we have strawberries and asparagus growing.

Speaker 2 (11:38.036)
I see strawberries too.

Speaker 1 (11:46.562)
I’ll say we did harvest some asparagus this year, but we let a lot go to seed because that helps to establish the crowns more profoundly, more robustly. And so we are going to have a much bigger.

crop next year. So it’s sort an investment in the future with our asparagus, but it’s a lot of fun. It’s a great way to talk about what part of the plant we eat, right? Because you can see, you know, we had flowers and seed pods there. There’s still a few left, but that’s a wonderful match with these, with the strawberries. Why don’t we go take a look? We’ve got children who are harvesting now the sugar snap peas from the, this is from the snacking garden.

Let’s check it out.

Speaker 1 (12:46.594)
So you can kind of see, I mean, we have kids like this very direct connection with harvesting food, which I think is incredibly fun. I think they do too. Snacking in the snacking garden is encouraged. So you can see the sugar snap peas. We’ve got radishes. That’s our second succession of radishes. We’ve got carrots growing here, which kids started harvesting yesterday. Two colors of beets also just starting to come up.

And then our hot crops are planted here. we do have some zucchini starting. can see tomatoes not yet ripening. Yeah, tomatillos. Yep, tomatillos and chiles. And then behind you, we’ve got sunflowers and herbs.

So the kids get to the experience of both planting and harv-

Yeah, they do. They do. And I mean, this is the snacking garden. It’s part of our main garden area. There are also multiple beds that they have in the kind of the camp area and education space.

So those are sort of their state. Exactly.

Speaker 1 (13:46.962)
Yep. And then these four beds here with flowers, chives, beets, onions, also growing. They have four beds of the drip irrigation line as well. they’ve got raised, we’ve basically got three different ways of growing that kids get to experience from raised beds, in-ground beds, and then this sort of larger expanse here of the snacking garden where our team of very experienced growers is helping to grow.

the food in this area so that we really know the kids will have that experience of abundance. That’s pretty joyful. Over the last year or so, we’ve really been focused, laser focused on building soil health. We did some great consulting with a wonderful farmer up here in Eastern Summit County, Andrea Morgan, who runs Moonshadow Farm. And we really started talking about having the

Very cool.

Speaker 1 (14:44.782)
an abundance of the highest quality compost and really using a broadfork to get that in and really build this, you know, build that microbiology. We are looking at next year doing some more compost teas and building sort of the mushroom with mushroom compost as well. So that’s been happening in this main part of the garden as well as the 134 plots around the outside there.

provided for community members. Those are provided $125 for the season or they’re provided for donation for families who for whom costs would be a barrier. Right in front of me here is an area that we are we’re really trying to build the soil. This has been an area that’s been underutilized in our garden just didn’t have the capacity to do everything all at once but this year we’re really excited to be able to you can see on the far side

That’s where we planted the first round of buckwheat. Pretty intense weeding and then planting. This section has been weeded and I think you can see, yep, you can see some buckwheat starting to come up. a pretty quick growing crop, so we’re gonna be looking to harvest, know, cut this down.

and then be planting some native plants here. The idea is that we’re going to have a sensory garden and something like a labyrinth here with some kind of geometric spiral shape, ideally. We’ll see what the design actually turns out to be. the idea is that we’ll have natives, we’ll have some beautiful sensory experiences for kids, and that we’re really building the soil because it had been degraded. And so we’ve been working this, putting a lot of soil in, some compost.

And then of course, fixing the nitrogen with that buckwheat. I’ll mention that we are also, last year we started cover cropping the demonstration beds as well. And are really encouraging our plot renters like with putting their gardens to bed and helping to support that. Really we are strongly encouraging straw this year and really trying to, you know, encourage folks to put some compost in before, like after things come out.

Speaker 1 (16:50.062)
So we’re going to be working on helping folks do that this year.

And what do you do throughout the winter?

In the winter, that’s really when the heart of our education programs in schools happen. So about 2,000 kids from pre-K to ninth grade are part of our education programs. Again, very seed to soil, very hands-on. We really feel like the experience of using a knife, of tasting things, of kind of having taste tests and really helping kids. When I say nutrition, what I’m, nutrition education, it’s really the kind of ideas around.

how our taste buds change over time, how it’s great to try things multiple times, try things in different ways. So I would say it’s a very kid-friendly, very developmentally appropriate kind of nutrition education that’s fun and engaging. And of course we’re always, you know, we’re planning for the next season. I mean, we do take a moment to sort of take a breath, but we are planning. There’s so many people who are, we engage about 2000 people through volunteers and plot runners, events like dinners in the garden.

camps, other education programs. So it takes a tremendous amount to do all the planning for this to happen right now. Really in the heart of our most beautiful, engaging time with folks. So we do engage in crop rotation. For example, our La Milpa beds, which definitely have some crops that pull a lot of nutrients. It was in one location in the garden for two years, and now we’ve just moved it this year. We have a sign about La Milpa, sort of some educational signage.

Speaker 1 (18:22.316)
that we designed intentionally so that it could be picked up, moved around to a different spot in the garden. And we move, we do do crop rotation every year. yeah, yeah. Again, it’s just really important for trying to maintain some fertility in the soil. We’re always trying to build it, but we certainly need to use best practices. We’re a no-till, kind of using regenerative methods, all organic. guess I didn’t say that before, but yes. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah.

So what’s characteristic of the soil up here anyway clay, sandy, what is it?

Yeah, it’s um, I would say it’s uh, my experience is very rocky. Okay. Very, very So that’s difficult. Yes, we did a lot of rock farming my first year here and clay.

Okay, a rocky clay. That sounds…challenged.

Yeah, it is challenging. And I think one of the things that’s amazing is to have an incredible team, both in terms of the education side, folks with decades of experience working with kiddos, working with kiddos outdoors, and in kind of experiential, people who have experiential backgrounds, as well as our incredible farm team who really is incredibly skilled at working the soil, at understanding.

Speaker 1 (19:40.958)
pest pressure and challenges there to really help us have the most robust harvest that we can. You know, this is a demonstration garden in the center. I we’re growing for the food pharmacy, but it’s a way for casual visitors or our plot renters to come and see like what’s happening? What are they doing? What are they growing? And then to have our garden team be able to directly answer questions. We have staff here six days a week, and so, you know, most of the time folks can come and ask a question.

and really get some advice on what’s happening in their own individual plots.

So how to live in the mountains and be a citizen of this place and subsist in a high elevation place.

I think you just said that really well Ben. So as a public land and as a demonstration space, I feel like the entire garden is an education space. From the kiddos in camp who are harvesting peas in the snacking garden to the plot runners to we engage about 300 volunteers every year who come and help us weed, harvest, tend the land. And we also do…

provide a lot of public education throughout Summit County around everything from pollinators and beekeeping to soil health to gardening 101, gardening 201, gardening 301 with our team. How to use tools effectively. What grows well up here? Some of the questions you were asking before. We’ll have both experienced gardeners who need a little bit of just extra help growing a particular crop that they’re interested in or brand new gardeners.

Speaker 1 (21:24.76)
who have moved here from Georgia. I have no idea how to deal with our climate. so having the education, having that ethos of we’re here to help promote the ideas of land stewardship, sustainable land management, of how you can grow food here and try to increase food security in Summit County. I think we’re all, most importantly, connecting our next generation to composting, to…

the food system to healthy food, how to grow it and how to really take care of this incredible resource that we have. Yeah, that’s really, for me, that’s what’s so important about Summit Community Gardens and having the support from Central Wasatch Commission.

Thanks for going walking with me and Helen Natal through Summit Community Gardens. The End the Wasatch podcast was created by the Central Wasatch Commission. Learn more about us at cwc.utah.gov. And if you would like to donate to our project work, go to cwc.utah.gov slash contribute. Please also follow us on Instagram, Twitter, threads, Facebook, and TikTok at Central Wasatch Commission and hashtag we are the Wasatch.

you

Speaker 2 (22:41.656)
While you’re on our website, check out the Central Wasatch Dashboard, a tool for the public, land managers, and policymakers to explore the historic and current environmental conditions of the Central Wasatch, including air quality, climate, geology and soils, vegetation communities, water, wildlife, and humans in the Wasatch. Also, if you haven’t already, learn about the Central Wasatch National Conservation and Recreation Area Act, emerging from the Mountain Accord

The CWNCRA is a locally driven consensus-based bill aimed at protecting the sources of our drinking water, preserving recreational access for the future, and ensuring enjoyment of the central Wasatch Mountains in the face of pressures from a growing population. This podcast was envisioned by Lindsay Nielsen and evolved by Mia McNeil. This episode was recorded, edited, and produced by me, Ben Kilborn, intro music by Andy Knobloch, cover art by Madeleine Pettit and Mia McNeil,

Thank you to all of the commissioners, the stakeholders, and the Youth Council for your continued support in implementing the Mountain Accord and working toward getting the CWNCRA across the finish line. We can’t thank you enough.