Community gardens spring up to feed Utah's hungry

KAYSVILLE -- A tight economy, tight yard space at home and consumers wanting more control over where their next meal comes from have community gardens popping up like dandelions this spring.

The latest is a 12,000-square-foot Utah Food Bank garden planted by 60 volunteers at the Utah State University Botanical Gardens in Kaysville.

Produce harvested from the garden, including tomatoes, honeydew melons, corn and potatoes, will be donated to the Utah Food Bank, said Jaydee Gunnell, Davis County horticulture agent for USU Extension Services.

A similar garden was planted in Ogden at the Mount Benedict Monastery under the direction of a business-community partnership. The harvest generated from that garden is being donated to area seniors.

"We figure we have that land at the botanical center and the expertise," Gunnell said of the Kaysville project, which will have the assistance of master gardeners on staff.

The garden planted last week is part of an Eagle Scout project being shared among four Scouts and the community members supporting them, Gunnell said. The garden still needs 15 to 30 community volunteers to come in weekly for two hours to weed and maintain it.

While the aim of the Kaysville garden is to fill the appetite of the needy, the cities of Clinton, North Salt Lake and Syracuse are organizing gardens to give residents an opportunity to fill their dinner tables.

The Syracuse City Council this month adopted a resolution creating a contract with participating green thumbs, charging them $15 to plant a 20-square-foot garden or $25 to plant a 40-square-foot garden on roughly 60 acres at 1000 W. 2356 South.

"We have some park land that we have purchased that we have not developed yet," Mayor Fred Panucci said. "So we thought, why not allow the citizens to utilize that for community gardens?"

The city created the project after seeing the success other cities were having with similar projects.

"We learn a lot from our neighbors, and hopefully they learn a little from us," Panucci said.

Having the garden will also give parents an opportunity to teach their children about the land and where food comes from, he said, "and save them a little money on their grocery bill."

Clinton established a 2-acre community garden at 600 N. 1600 West last summer at the request of residents, said Terri Jenson, city public works office manager.

The garden space, offered at no charge, has 22 plots, she said.

Last year, not all the available garden plots were used, Jenson said. But this summer, no plots are available.

North Salt Lake is helping develop what is being referred to as the Orchard Community Garden, opening this month. The garden will be on a "building-lot" size of land at Orchard Drive and Center Street.

Three years ago, the city bought land to make a road improvement, leaving about a quarter-acre of surplus property not big enough to develop a park on, said Mayor Shanna Schaefermeyer.

After meeting with residents to determine what should be done with the lot, city leaders determined the best use of the land would be a community garden.

Community gardens are growing in popularity because more people want organic food and they want to be able to control their food source because of recent food poisoning scares, she said.

"I think it is good use of this piece of property," Schaefermeyer said of the land that would have cost the city $100,000 to landscape versus the $20,000 it has spent establishing the garden.

"I really don't believe we will be investing a lot of money into it," she said of the garden plots to be available to residents for a fee ranging from $10 to $40.

City officials hope that, through a partnership with USU Extension Services, it will be able to introduce around the periphery of the property gardening demonstrations and offer courses in planting and pruning, Schaefermeyer said.

The city is preparing the site with drip irrigation, and the ground is being leveled by Eagle Scout groups in preparation for raised growing beds, she said.

"We're just on that curve of getting it started," Schaefermeyer said. "There are a lot of possibilities."

Sunset has had a community garden maintained by a private resident behind city hall since 2007.

Officials said that garden, however, has not been sown this year as a result of the city council's discussion of using the property for development.