Meet Taylor Drexler of Growing Gardens in Boulder

Today we’d like to introduce you to Taylor Drexler.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Growing Gardens is a Boulder-based non-profit organization established in 1998. Growing Gardens mission is to enrich the lives of our community through sustainable urban agriculture. Growing Gardens envisions people experiencing a direct and deep connection with plants, the land and each other. Through its many gardening-based programs, Growing Gardens strives to reach gardeners and would-be gardeners of all ages to work alongside the organization and build community through urban agriculture. We serve around 27,000 community members each year through our education and food donation programs (53% of whom are low income).

Growing Gardens is blessed by the generosity of the landowners, the Long Family. The land is farmed by Long’s Gardens which is a third-generation, family-owned and operated iris farm on North Broadway in Boulder, Colorado. They strongly support preserving agricultural land and agricultural education and lease the east 11 acres of their property to Growing Gardens. This is the last remaining piece of agriculturally zoned land in the City of Boulder and we are very grateful to be able to call it home for Growing Gardens. Our largest Community Garden (the Hawthorn Garden) is located here, as well as our Cultiva Youth Project, the Children’s Peace Garden, our Able Garden and our 400 sq feet greenhouse.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Like every organization, we’ve had growing pains along the way. Right now we are working hard to complete a project that has been 12 years in the making – to get a conservation easement on the Long Family Farm to permanently protect the land we operate on for future generations. More information on this project is available here: https://www.growinggardens.org/protect

Protect The Long Family Farm is a collaborative effort to protect the last 25 acres of working community farmland in the Boulder city limits. The property is home to Long’s Gardens and nonprofits Growing Gardens and Mountain Flower Goat Dairy, together serving over 45,000 people each year. The Long family has owned and operated this land for over a century and is committed to preserving it as urban farmland forever by placing a conservation easement on the property. The land would remain in private ownership but would have permanent restrictions so that it could never be subdivided or developed, benefitting the public through the preservation of open land, agriculture and natural resources.

Please tell us about Growing Gardens.
Our Mission
To enrich the lives of our community through sustainable urban agriculture.

Our Vision
People experiencing a direct and deep connection with food, the land and each other.