Community Garden Connect: Planning for the Future of Community Gardens 

Community Garden Connect is a project rooted in providing longevity and succession plans for leaders in the Saint Paul and Ramsey County urban agriculture/community gardening sphere. Xiem collaborated with Ramsey County as a consultant to inform the SHIP (Statewide Health Improvement Partnership) State of Urban Agriculture report in 2025, and continues to collect data to inform Ramsey County’s map of communal growing spaces through Human Nature’s website. Beyond infrastructure tools and reports, the project provides space and time for leaders to connect, discuss common issues and concerns, and feel supported in their work. 

Making Space for Garden Leaders to Connect 

Leaders said that having space and time to convene and connect over shared issues was healing and encouraging for continuing the work. Meetings often ran longer than 2 hours, as leaders often lacked time or space to meet with each other outside these scheduled meetings. This highlights the importance of placemaking in helping ideas take shape. 

When tasked with activities such as “build your own successor,” participants said that while handing off responsibilities and putting them on paper was difficult, they knew it was necessary. During this activity, participants wrote their own job descriptions and then assigned the work to an ideated candidate. 

In one opening activity demonstrating resource sharing, members were asked to take a random number of pom poms from a brown bag. They were then told that only members with a certain number of one colour of pom-poms could apply for a large grant; nobody could feasibly do so with their own pom poms. But when they were told they could share, it became clear that collaborative grant-writing was possible—it took an average of 2-3 people to pool their resources and become eligible to apply for this imaginary grant. 

In this spirit, Xiem’s business, Human Nature, applied for a Minnesota Department of Agriculture Grant with the Twin Cities Agricultural Trust and the Urban Farm and Garden Alliance. By pooling their resources, the three secured a grant that will support 10 growing spaces in Frogtown and Rondo. 

Connecting Growing Spaces Across Saint Paul 

The project took two phases: In phase 1, Xiem surveyed over 130 growing spaces and worked with Ramsey County to consult on the role of urban agriculture in food security. She was part of a 5-person cohort of leaders in Saint Paul and Ramsey County that convened over winter months to hone in on primary issues that limit or propel the success of community-led growing spaces. As a part of this project, Xiem also contributed to the Ramsey County Growing Spaces map. She submitted spreadsheets and, with the help of planning interns, scouted for candidates to participate in phase 2 while collecting location and access data to make public. 

In phase 2, she connected with 46 garden leaders and met with 6 organizations that manage multiple gardens through 4 meetings at spaces throughout Saint Paul: The Ramsey County Plato Building, the Ramsey County Environmental Center, the Black Youth Healing Arts Center, and finally the Highland Park Library. Meetings ranged from job description building to sharing common issues, the positionality of community-led greenspaces in urban development, and a movie screening of The Garden (2008). Her business, Human Nature, now handles intakes for new or updated garden spaces on the Ramsey County-hosted ArcGIS map. 

The impact of Xiem’s project shows up in many ways: engaged leaders taking pictures and asking for slideshows after presentations, gracious thank-yous, and long-time colleagues in the same community finally meeting in person. Curious adults and youth attend the meetings to network with established leaders and learn how community-based greening efforts really take place, showing that environmental work exists well outside municipal jobs and far away national parks. 

Building On Learnings Beyond One Project 

The wealth of wisdom of the community garden connecting members is so deep and full.

I feel completely buoyed after every meeting and love synthesizing all the flow charts and diagrams of long misunderstood concepts, hidden systems, loopholes, and moments of grace—everything that allows community gardens to exist. 

Relationships will continue through meetings, but because joy is essential to why community gardens exist, their leaders, of course, want to keep things fun. On-site garden meet-ups, virtual meetings, and a booklet of activities compiled from the meetings will form the basis of a curriculum to help leaders prepare for succession and longevity. 

Xiem has learned a dearth of information about urban planning and the loss of commons and agrarian life in cities. She’s now Executive Director of her own organization, Human Nature, which carries the torch of providing access to green spaces in the I-94 corridor of Saint Paul from Frogtown Green. 

About Xiem Busch-Vuong 

Xiem Busch-Vuong (any pronouns) is a Teochew-Vietnamese-American butch lesbian from St. Paul. Graduating with a Bachelor’s in Information Technology, Xiem is the Executive Director of Human Nature, an outfit that provides urban nature consulting in the I-94 corridor of Saint Paul. Xiem was part of the SEAD storyteller’s cohort in 2020, an exhibited artist at Xia Gallery in 2021–2022, became a certified tree inspector in 2024, an Arbor Day Scholar in 2025, and has spoken at the Shade Tree Short Course of Minnesota for the past two years. 

Instagram: @maixiem @humannaturemn 

Bluesky: @xiemm 

Website: xiem.neocities.org 

#Communitygardening #StPaul #UrbanAgrictulture