NACD UAC Grants Northern Plains Region
KS - Douglas County Conservation District
MT - Lower Musselshell Conservation District
NE - Upper Big Blue Natural Resource District
KS - Douglas County Conservation District
2017 Grantee
Douglas County Conservation District (CD) and city personnel created a guidebook and toolkit for implementing and participating in the Lawrence Common Ground garden and incubator farm program. A series of stakeholder meetings were held with county and city staff to conduct an internal report and program evaluation of the Common Ground program.
An urban agriculture demonstration high tunnel and education garden were installed at the county fairgrounds. The high tunnel will be managed and maintained by the county’s Master Gardeners program.
The project team conducted a series of conservation practices workshops and a high tunnel workshop designed to help individuals with the process of permitting and erecting a high tunnel within city limits.
The project also provided participants with education opportunities through visits to other regional urban agriculture programs, attendance at the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) conference, participation at the American Planning Association conference, and presentations at the Urban Food Systems Symposium.
Sustainability
The toolkit has provided a blueprint and foundation for future guide updates. Management and updating of the toolkit was turned over to the Lawrence Sustainability staff. Presentations regarding the program, updates and changes will be made annually to county commissioners.
The high tunnel laid a successful foundation for an urban agriculture education garden at the Douglas County Fairgrounds. Care and maintenance of the garden and high tunnel will be the responsibility of the county Master Gardeners program and Kansas State University Research and Extension staff. Staff will use the garden for future research, field trials and food donations.
The garden has been central to the development of Master Gardeners vegetable trials in Douglas County. These trials provide data to Kansas State University (K-State) and are aggregated with information from other counties to evaluate how different varieties perform in Kansas.
In addition, the garden provided over 200 pounds of food to the local food bank, Just Food. The demonstration area has plans to expand in 2019 with the addition of several perennial fruit trees.
The K-State Extension and Douglas County Horticulture program have committed to continuing the high tunnel. Programming is being developed to use the garden as a teaching resource.
MT - Lower Musselshell Conservation District
2024 Grantee
The Lower Musselshell Conservation District (LMCD) along with partners in the community of would like to create a community and educational garden in Roundup Montana. The project would have community educational benefits from gardening classes for adults and youth in the area and increase the food security in Musselshell County.
NE - Upper Big Blue Natural Resource District
2017 Grantee
This project is the first of its kind in the State of Nebraska and consists of three components: a soil health demonstration, community garden and pollinator habitat. The goals are to maintain profitability while improving soil health, increasing awareness of the importance of pollinator habitat, and providing a community garden for the citizens of York.
Year one was fruitful with an inaugural group of gardeners in the community garden. The triticale growing season and harvest on the soil health demonstration acres was very successful. The harvested seed was contracted to a cover crop company for use in their cover crop mixtures. The triticale harvest was followed with a manure application and cover crop seeding. The cover crops were grazed in mid-September and reseeded to a winter cover crop in October. Soil health will be measured through rigorous soil and plant biomass sampling. As the soil health improves, so will the soil sample results.
The district has also been building soil health in the pollinator area by keeping vegetation growing most months. Even if vegetation on the land surface was not growing, the roots and soil bacteria below ground were thriving. Pollinator seed was planted in the fall with the goal of seeing pollinators of every species doing their job in the summer.
The community garden had 11 gardeners the first year. Each one brought different resources and expertise to the garden area. A variety of fruit-bearing shrubs and trees were planted on the site to allow community groups to harvest the fruit and sell it as a fundraiser for their organizations.
Sustainability
An interlocal agreement was signed by both the Upper Big Blue NRD and City of York for this project to continue until 2021. The NRD and City have budgeted funds and are committed to making Project GROW a success. Two more years of funding were secured through a Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality: Source Water Protection Grant to continue the educational efforts and provide technical assistance surrounding Project GROW.