Heartwood Cohousing: A Thriving Sanctuary of Community and Sustainability

In a world where community connection and sustainability are more important than ever, a unique model of living is emerging. Modern developments maximize privacy but often lack a sense of community. Cohousing is not a new concept, originating in Denmark in the 1970s, it aims to create a place where community, sustainability, and love for the outdoors can come together in harmony. Children can play outside and neighbors gather together to celebrate holidays, birthdays, and the simplicities of day-to-day life. Welcome to Heartwood Cohousing – nearly 25 years ago a group of individuals came together to realize their dream and ended up with far more than they could ever imagine.

About Heartwood Cohousing

The community covers 360 acres, with 65 acres of irrigated pasture land. It currently has 24 sustainably built homes designed to maximize solar gain, improve energy efficiency, and utilize land effectively. The community also features several solar-powered systems. This place was far ahead of its time. They are now expanding to add 14 more homes. This will welcome more like-minded community members.

They share responsibilities for communal resources, including a common house, yurt, forest preserve, sledding hill, and irrigated pasture. They also manage a children’s play structure, workshop, hot tub, trails, and tennis and pickleball courts. Additional resources include a basketball court, orchard, irrigated gardens, tractor, henhouse, and a 33′ Growing Dome greenhouse.

Community Greenhouse Management

The Growing Dome allows the community, located in Southwestern Colorado, to grow food year round with no added heat in the winter. Community members share the responsibility of caring for the greenhouse, and everyone receives a share of the produce. Seven team members manage the greenhouse, each assigned a specific day to care for the dome. They number the beds to simplify watering schedules and overall management.

There is a welcome board in the greenhouse that outlines what is ready to harvest, but Katie, the garden team leader, provides everyone with an orientation so they know what to pick and when. They also place fresh vegetables in the common house, allowing neighbors to come and take what they need.

What’s Growing in the Greenhouse?

They use the greenhouse to start seeds early in the spring for their outside gardens. In the summer, the dome overflows with champagne grapes, peppers, and more varieties of tomatoes than one can count. German striped, little blonde girl, roma, amish paste, bumblebee striped, cherokee purple, and sungold just to name a few. In the winter they transition to greens and herbs.

Because the grapes are deciduous and die back in the fall and there are no obstructions to the south, the Growing Dome stays warm in the winter with nothing more than the heat of the sun and the built in features like the above ground pond and north wall insulation. They stock the above-ground pond with goldfish and use a watering can to draw water from it. A pump extracts the nutrient-rich muck from the bottom, which they use to replenish the garden beds once or twice a year.

Maintenance of an Almost 30 Year Old Growing Dome

They have maintained the Dome over the years. They received it as a donation in 2000, and it was already a few years old at that time. Their best estimate is that the Dome was originally built in 1998, but we didn’t keep many paper records at the time, and this was before we added the date plaque on the side of the door. Due to its age, the Dome has some old features like the inset doorway and 16” foundation wall.

The community of Heartwood has completed most of the maintenance themselves. They replaced ⅓ of the polycarbonate after a hail storm about 10 years ago, rebuilt parts of the north wall and replaced siding after decades of snow accumulation and melt, stapled some of the north wall insulation back into place, and added new wall lining to segments of the perimeter garden beds. Despite its age the Dome has been fully functional throughout the decades they have had it and continues to grow food 365 days a year.

A Closed Loop Food System

Nothing goes to waste and everything is organic. Garden waste, weeds, and other landscape trimmings are fed to chickens. The chicken waste is then composted and used in the gardens.

They also have a comfrey tube. Comfrey leaves can be steeped or juiced and strained to make a nutrient-rich tea or green juice. While they can take over a Dome, growing them outside provides an abundance of leaves for various uses. At Heartwood, they harvest the leaves and place them in a black-painted tube that absorbs the sun’s heat. As the leaves decay, they turn into a thick black sludge, which Katie calls “black gold.” This black gold is then used as a garden amendment. In the winter time they empty the tube and seal off the bottom and resume use once the snow melts.

The Heart of Heartwood

This type of a community provides individuals with a larger sense of purpose. It allows for people to enjoy the benefits of homesteading: connection with nature, sustainable lifestyle, an old fashioned way of life, without the sense of loneliness that homesteading can bring. There is always someone who can fill in if you are not feeling well or wanting to go on vacation. The new homes that they will be adding will surround the Growing Dome, placing it at the heart of Heartwood.