Doug Wooley waters green onions, rosemary and cosmos flowers, among other plants, at the Juanita Nolasco Community Garden in Denver, Colo., on Saturday, July 15, 2023. In 2018, Wooley, alongside fellow Juanita Nolasco residents Chris Moreno and John Mullins, started the garden after the beds sat mostly empty for years.
Enabled Gardening
Doug Wooley, hose in hand, scootered over to a thick crop of violet Cosmos flowers growing unruly out of an old bathtub. Nearby, John Mullins weeded in garden beds dotted with all sorts of plants beginning to grow—grasshopper-nibbled collard greens, small peppers hanging off their stems, lanky green onions and squash just starting to flower. A small home-shaped bird feeder hung on the fence near the plots. The Juanita Nolasco community garden teemed with life.
The two dozen garden beds there come alive every summer below the Section 8 housing development for older adults and people with disabilities, located a few blocks northeast of Sheridan Boulevard and 6th Avenue in west Denver. But it wasn’t always like that.
When Wooley first noticed the wooden garden beds sitting unused after moving to the building in 2009, he and other residents saw an opportunity. They wanted to grow a garden.
Wooley, Mullins and fellow resident gardener Chris Moreno got the garden beds and the Juanita Nolasco Garden Club started in 2018. They improved the soil with cover crops and compost while growing different fruits, vegetables and herbs. Residents trickled in and out of the garden for those first couple of seasons. In 2022, the garden became part of the Denver Urban Gardens network, a nonprofit that builds and supports gardens throughout Denver.
What started as a grassroots gardening effort is helping to build community bit by bit among the housing complex’s older and disabled residents while also combating food insecurity.
From left, Chris Moreno, Kayelene Martinez and Wooley plant garlic and other plants early in the season on Thursday, May 23, 2024, during one of the garden club meetings. The 188-unit Juanita Nolasco Residences, a Section 8 housing development for older adults and people with disabilities, sits behind them.
Alvie Muniz, left, Wooley, and John Mullins, right, have a laugh together after hosting a volunteer work day at the garden on Saturday, July 20, 2024. While Mullins’ has increasingly debilitating physical disabilities, he still comes out to garden as much as he’s able and socialize. "These guys aren't the biggest social butterflies but it sure beats sitting up in my room watching crap online. I got to do something. I ain't ready to roll over yet," Mullins said.
Nadine, a resident who sometimes gardens with the club, holds a hand cultivator while picking weeds on Saturday, July 15, 2023. “They call me the weed lady. I find joy pulling weeds,” said Nadine.
Leaves from a weed sit on a rolling stool, which helps gardeners more easily get around and be closer to the ground for activities like pulling weeds, on Saturday, July 15, 2023.
Nadine, who is Indigenous and lives with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, waters plants on Saturday, July 15, 2023. She’s learned to listen to the nearby stream, bees and other sounds around the garden, finding joy in watching things grow, she says. “Everybody that’s hurting, everybody that’s in pain, you can find joy in your surroundings.”
Water drips off a sign welcoming people to the Juanita Nolasco garden on one of the 12 garden beds on Saturday, July 20, 2024. During any given season, about 10 residents participate in the garden.
Fresh produce can be difficult to access for older adults and people with physical and other limitations, like many of Juanita Nolasco’s residents. People with disabilities face higher rates of food insecurity in the U.S. The closest grocery store to Juanita Nolasco is over a mile away—a significant distance when most of the building’s low-income residents rely on public transportation and face barriers to walking, biking or driving. On top of that, loneliness and a lack of community disproportionately affect older adults and nd disabled people with disabilitiese, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic.
But gardening, and other efforts by the 10 or so residents who are part of the Juanita Nolasco Garden Club, have begun to fill in some of those gaps.
From left, the Juanita Nolasco Garden Club’s main gardeners John Mullins, Alvie Muniz, Doug Wooley, Kayelene Martinez and Chris Moreno pose for portraits.
Moreno pulls weeds in a garden plot with collard greens, seen in the foreground, and other plants on Thursday, July 20, 2023. Moreno has lived at Juanita Nolasco for about a decade and has been involved in the garden for most of that time. He also gives other residents rides to the grocery store who have trouble getting their groceries otherwise.
A Juanita Nolasco resident talks with Mullins, center, and Moreno, right, as they garden together during a meeting on Thursday, July 20, 2023.
All food harvested from the garden is first distributed among the club participants (the roster varies throughout any given gardening season). Any extras are set out for other residents to use. The garden, however, can only produce so much, considering the limited participation from the 188 unit building’s residents and unpredictable harvests each year in just a dozen garden beds. The club has also spearheaded a partnership with GoFarm, a mobile market for fresh and locally grown produce throughout the summer (and a 2024 Colorado Trust grantee), and a no cost grocery program with Denver Food Rescue, that both regularly visit the building. The no cost grocery program, which runs every Saturday, has also helped foster community, with some residents showing up to socialize and wait in line up to two hours beforehand, says Sonja Shearron, a member of the resident council who now runs the program every week. All the while, a small but tight-knit community has grown around the garden over the years.
Wooley, center right, examines food after setting out fresh produce from the garden for a no cost food distribution in the community room at Juanita Nolasco Residences as other residents, including Kayalene Martinez, center left, gather food on Saturday, July 20, 2024. The garden club spearheaded a no cost grocery program partnership with Denver Food Rescue, one of its ongoing efforts to combat food insecurity at the building, which is now run by Juanita Nolasco’s resident council.
Juanita Nolasco residents pick out fresh produce from GoFarm in front of the building on Saturday, July 20, 2024. The garden club also facilitated the building’s partnership with GoFarm, a 2024 Colorado Trust grantee, to bring fresh produce to residents at affordable, subsidized prices twice monthly. GoFarm accepts SNAP, too, and the first $10 of groceries at Juanita Nolasco are free.
Christopher Dowdy, who’s been living at Juanita Nolasco since 2016, shops for fresh produce at the GoFarm mobile market on Saturday, July 20, 2024. If it weren’t for the mobile market, grocery shopping would be more complicated for him. Dowdy, who is Autistic and allergic to nuts, doesn’t always trust the shopper assistants at grocery stores to get the right products and had to get a ride to the store in the first place.
Groceries and produce are listed on a fridge inside the GoFarm mobile market truck, named Chuck, on Saturday, July 20, 2024.
Kale, collard greens and chives from the garden are set out at a no cost food distribution in the community room at Juanita Nolasco Residences on Saturday, July 20, 2024. After first being distributed among the club participants, any extra food from the garden is set out for other residents. While the garden club can provide some of their harvest for other residents, they can only produce so much considering the limited participation from the 188 unit building’s residents and unpredictable harvests each year in just a dozen garden beds.
Sonja Shearron, a resident council member of Juanita Nolasco Residences, washes collard greens from the garden to make ratatouille in her apartment there on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023. While she doesn’t rely on food from the garden, she enjoys occasionally using and eating its fresh and local food.
Zucchini, eggplant, peppers, squash and collard greens sit washed in Shearron’s kitchen, ready to be used for ratatouille on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023.
Shearron peels garlic from the garden to make ratatouille on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023. The stigma and shame around needing food for many residents prevents them from fully utilizing the garden and other free food initiatives sometimes, she says.
Shearron prays before eating ratatouille made with produce from the garden on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023. While she doesn’t garden herself, a self-proclaimed “city girl”, she likes going down to socialize with the gardeners from time to time and frequently works with them on food security efforts at Juanita Nolasco.
A statue of Mary decorates the Juanita Nolasco garden among water jug planters and irises on Thursday, May 23, 2024.
These days, club members meet every week at the garden throughout the spring, summer and fall. They water the beds, discuss conditions and upcoming events, and talk through improvements they can make. They’ve made some adaptations to help enable gardening for members, mostly in the tools they use. Residents can sit on rolling stools to more easily get around and be closer to the ground for activities like pulling weeds. They’ve begun experimenting lately with higher raised beds to minimize back-bending for those in wheelchairs, too. Work from volunteers throughout the season continues to be a welcome help with garden projects.
“When we have also a multitude of health challenges, whatever that may look like, it’s really hard to go do things around people. But if you can go out into a garden that’s blooming for 15, 20 minutes, that’s better than being in the apartment,” Wooley said.
From left, Mullins, Muniz and student volunteer Aristotle Ramirez, 15, work on the garden on Saturday, July 20, 2024. Volunteers like Ramirez help fill in the gaps at the garden since resident gardeners have some physical and time limitations that prevent them from getting everything they want done.
A green onion flowers as Mullins waters the garden on Saturday, July 20, 2024.
Mullins and Moreno share a laugh while weeding at the garden on Thursday, July 20, 2023. The garden club has helped developed a small but tight-knit community during an essential time for older adults and people with disabilities, who are disproportionately affected by loneliness and a lack of community, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Freshly harvested green beans sit on the edge of a garden bed on Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023.
Wooley examines a watermelon from the garden on Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023. The garden club has helped rebuild some sense of community for Wooley, who’s mother’s death in impacted his feeling of community and support. “I know for me, when I feel the sense of belonging, I’m much more willing to put the time and energy and effort into it because, ‘hey, I’m a part of it.’ I can make it move forward or to the left or the right—whatever we need to do—but I’m not alone.”
For Wooley, helping create the garden club and its community grew from personal experience. People around him had always supported him after his difficult childhood and medical experiences, he said, especially his mom. But when she died, he lost a big part of that community and care.
“I’ve always tried to help rebuild that (sense of community) because I know how important that is,” Wooley said. “I know for me, when I feel the sense of belonging, I’m much more willing to put the time and energy and effort into it because, ‘hey, I’m a part of it.’ I can make it move forward or to the left or the right—whatever we need to do—but I’m not alone.”
Wooley and other members have grander visions for the space, but for now, he thinks about the small wins. When they first started working the soil seven years ago, there weren’t any worms—an indicator of healthy soil. Now, worms wiggle throughout the nutrient-rich dirt.
A grasshopper crawls on a weed at the Juanita Nolasco garden on Saturday, July 15, 2023.
A green bean is placed atop Wooley’s phone, showing a garden club to-do list, during a meeting on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023.
Wooley rolls by a high raised bed, which they’re experimenting with to minimize back-bending for those in wheelchairs, as an angel statue, painted by gardener Alvie Muniz, decorates the garden on Saturday, July 20, 2024.
To learn more about the Juanita Nolasco garden, visit the Denver Urban Gardens website.