The Garden Project, sponsored by the Greater Lansing Food Bank, allows area residents to have their own garden and grow any kind of annual produce, from tomatoes to watermelons.
“The idea came out of the 1982 recession when all the GM workers were out of work,” said Bob Kirkby, a coordinator for The Garden Project. “There were so many people who were unable to feed themselves that we started the Greater Lansing Food Bank.
“The Garden Project started on the side, thinking that if people could go out and grow their food on their own, they would become more self-sufficient.”
Kirkby, a resource development graduate student, signed on to the program as a volunteer, but eventually found that he could make the program work as part of his master’s degree thesis.
According to Garden Project officials, 87 people made use of the field last year, mostly graduate students and faculty from MSU.
Outside of enabling residents to grow their own food, The Garden Project organizes groups of volunteers to harvest produce from gardens and fields to donate to local kitchens and shelters.
Project officials plan on sending out registration forms in March, but request that interested people call first, since the forms are sent through bulk mail.
At each of the 18 gardens scattered throughout the Lansing area, about 94 households can sign up for their own 25-square-foot plot of land to grow whatever they want.
Participants are given the seeds, tools, fertilizer and anything else they need to exercise their green thumbs.
All they need to provide is a desire to grow.
Yanlin Li, an education graduate student, grew a variety of crops, from beans to eggplants, on her 25-square-foot plot last year.
“It’s really a good project,” Li said. “We got a lot of experience and it’s kind of another type of exercise. It’s very good to have outdoor exercise.”
But her crops went to more than just her family’s table.
“A lot of people’s plots were destroyed by deer, but that’s OK,” she said. “I think they might be very hungry.”
East Lansing resident Scott Turnbow has lived behind one of the community gardens on Lilac Street for the last nine years, and has seen it continue through a number of growing seasons.
“One year it was real big, but since then it’s been pretty quiet,” he said.
For more information, visit www.lansingfoodbank.org or call (517)887-4660.
