Community Gardening

A community garden is an area used for growing plants or animals, which has been collaboratively created and is maintained by members of the public. A community garden can take place on public or private land and can involve a broad cross-section of the public, as in a neighborhood community garden. Or it can involve specific sectors of the population, such as a school garden that involves students, teachers, parents, and other community members who support the garden for education.

        Community Garden Handbook

Looking for a place to have a garden? The following locations have plots available for the public to use. All of them are free of charge. Contact the volunteer garden leader to request a plot or get on a waiting list.

All City of Des Moines managed sites currently have a waiting list.  Please complete the application here to be added to the wait list.  For more information, please email communitygarden@dmgov.org
Ashfield Community Garden
1850 Hubbell Ave
Callie Le'au Courtright, Email Address, (515) 248-6380

Downtown Community Garden
SE 6th & Scott
Callie Le'ua Courtright, Email Address, (515) 248-6380

Downtown Community Garden

Drake Community Garden
27th Street just south of Universtiy Avenue
Rose Scott, Email Address, (515) 255-1340

Edmunds-Oakridge-Sherman Hill Community Garden
On the school grounds of Edmunds School at 1601 Crocker Street
Dawn O'Brien, Email Address, (515) 243-1174

Edmunds Community Garden

Franklin Community Garden
55th & Franklin, just west of the Franklin Avenue Library
Callie Le'au Courtright, Email Address, (515) 248-6380
Currently has a waiting list
Franklin Community Gardener guidelines

Woodlawn Community Garden
3126 Twana Drive
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Backyard Gardens

Digging Deeper will support a significant increase in gardening among low-income communities in Des Moines. The project will provide targeted communities with raised bed gardens with one perennial plant (such as a rhubarb plant, a raspberry bush, or a fruit tree) with follow-up assistance from experienced gardeners.

Two neighborhoods would be identified each year of the three-year project to help obtain raised bed gardens with an edible perennial in individual yards or in common areas of multiple family housing. A total of at least twenty beds would be built in each neighborhood each year, for a total of 120 gardens during the three years of the project. The Capitol East, Carpenter and Moulton/Urban Dreams neighborhood associations have already made commitments to partner with Digging Deeper to receive raised-bed gardens.

Digging Deeper has chosen to work on the neighborhood level with the goal of using urban gardening to build community among neighbors. PACE youth, Home Depot staff and neighborhood leaders will be trained in community organizing skills during the winter. In early spring, all three groups and Digging Deeper staff will pair up to canvass the selected neighborhoods to identify recipients of the raised-bed gardens. Each recipient of a raised bed garden and perennial edible must agree to attend one neighborhood based gardening demonstration class. Classes would focus on basic care and maintenance of gardens, including planning, intensive planting, site selection, and spacing. The project will continually look for opportunities to increase neighbor-to-neighbor interaction, as well as connecting people to neighborhood (such as associations) and other local resources.

In April and May of each year of the grant, PACE youth will assist Home Depot staff in building, delivering and filling the 4 foot by 8 foot raised-bed gardens. Home Depot will be responsible for most materials, construction, delivery and organization of the gardens. The City of Des Moines will be providing compost for the gardens. Each gardener receiving a bed would have access to a mentor visit during the growing season. The neighborhood/community organizations partnering to create the gardens in their neighborhoods agree to assist in outreach to find and coordinate potential individual backyard gardeners. They are committed to aid in designing the outreach strategy, include information about the project in any newsletters or fliers, and find six adults willing to work with the trained youth to canvass the neighborhood door to door. In addition, they are providing one person who will act as the central coordinator in the neighborhood to help coordination canvassing and communication with interested backyard gardeners.

Annual Fall Perennial Divide

Renew your garden and beautify Des Moines public land by donating perennial plant material. Residents who are donating plant material are asked to label their plants and identify its sun requirements, height, and color of flower. No donation is too small. We welcome plants of all kinds including perennials, bulbs, groundcovers, herbs, vegetables, annual seedlings, ornamental grasses, shrubs, seeds and house plants. Donations will be accepted at the City greenhouse starting Friday, September 23^rd and ending at noon Saturday the 24^th. Non profit groups that have been confirmed to receive donations can pick up plants from 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

The general public is asked to bring plant donations to:

2501 Maury - Chesterfield Community Center

Friday, September 23^rd        8:00 a.m. – 2:30p.m.  

Don't Let Them Mark Your Turf

The City of Des Moines operates a graffiti removal program to “erase” graffiti that appears in our neighborhoods, on public property and in commercial areas. Graffiti includes undesirable messages, scribbles, and symbols that are usually spray- or hand- painted on fences, buildings, bridges, and other structures, as well as on objects such as trees, trash dumpsters and street signs.  The ugly results can require much work and expense to remove.   The number of incidences of graffiti continues to increase in our city each year; over 90% of them are the result of gangs marking or “tagging” their respective areas of turf and sending messages to rival gangs. 
 

The city’s graffiti program is administered by the Park and Recreation Department, which handles removal, and the Police Department’s Gang Unit, which tracks the locations and messages to monitor for possible gang activity and to create various types of reports.   Parks’ goal is to have HATE graffiti removed within 24 hours or less of its reporting, and GANG graffiti eliminated within three working days.  Although police patrols of the City’s Neighborhood Based Service Delivery (NBSD) Program are constantly on the lookout for and reporting graffiti sightings, the Parks and Police Departments rely on the eyes of the public to help them eliminate graffiti.

How to Report Graffiti

Anyone, anywhere, anytime can report the location and nature of a graffiti sighting to the Park and Recreation Department via email  or phone (515) 248-6350 or the Police Graffiti Hot Line: (515) 237-1808.   
 

Facts About Grafitti in Des Moines

Following are the number of reported graffiti incidences in the past three years:

2007 – 1121
2008 – 1277
2009  - 1392

Over 90% of these graffiti cases are  gang-related. 50% of them occur on private property and the other 50% are on public property. Private property includes places of business, houses, garages, fences and other buildings. Public property includes bridges, over- and under-passes, freeway walls on the non-DOT side, utility boxes and poles, trees, sidewalks, park property, etc.  Schools and the DOT take care of their own incidences of graffiti so the numbers cited do not include graffiti on those properties. Also not included are incidences taken care of by private property owners without being reported to police.

The City contracts graffiti removal through a bid process; the current contract is for $43.50/hour plus the cost of paint supplies, which is generally around $5,000 annually. White paint is used on the majority of surfaces; when paint is not the solution, a product called Elephant Snot is used for removal on fences, metal buildings, etc.