Peace Park & Garden, winner of the 2015 award for Most Creative Use of Space (Photo courtesy of Groundwork Milwaukee)

Groundwork Milwaukee is accepting nominations for its 2017 Strong Roots awards. The award recognizes innovation and excellence in its network of over 90 community gardens. The categories for this year’s awards are:

• Harvest – photos of: healthy gardens, meals made with ingredients right from the garden
• Community Involvement – photos of: large community events at the garden or great community engagement in your garden
• Rain water harvesting – photos of: effective methods for collecting rain water at the garden
• Placemaking – photos of: creative aspects in the garden such as murals

These categories recognize that, while many of our gardens grow fantastic crops, the benefits of community gardens extend well beyond growing great food.

To nominate a garden in the Groundwork network, gardeners can take a photo of their garden. The photo(s) should capture how the group has succeeded in one of the four categories.

Post your photos to Groundwork’s Facebook (facebook.com/GroundworkMKE/). Don’t forget to include: #strongroots17 and a caption describing the photo – including the award category from the four categories listed above and which garden is represented in the photo.

Garden groups can contact, ZIPMKE (zipmke.com) a partner with this year’s Strong Roots Awards, for assistance photographing their garden. Deadline to post photos to Groundwork Milwaukee’s Facebook Page is September 20^th 5 pm.

Winning gardens will receive support from Groundwork Milwaukee and our Green Team to build up to $500 worth of infrastructure improvements at their garden in 2018.

For details visit: http://www.groundworkmke.org/strong-roots-awards/