Grateful Tomato Garden
Location
600 E 769 S, Salt Lake City
Quick Facts
Type: Vegetable Garden
Created:
Number of Gardeners: 25
Accept Volunteers: yes
Rent Plots: yes
Contact
Name: Brit Merrill
Phone: 801-359-2658
Email: Click Here
Description
The garden occupies more than 1/2 acre on the east side of Salt Lake City, at 600 E 800 S. It includes an artesian well that waters our garden plots, as well as a beautiful straw bale greenhouse and a hoop house. It is also the site of our annual Tomato Sandwich Party! Corn, tomatoes, pumpkins, pears, apples, peaches, strawberries, raspberries and a wide variety of herbs are regulars in this garden. With so much space, we are able to grow a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.
Youth Program
Our Grateful Tomato Garden also provides space for our Youth Gardening Program. Kids just love coming to this garden to learn as they grow and eat their own fresh vegetables!
History of the Garden
It only takes a peek into the history of our Grateful Tomato Garden to understand that Salt Lake inhabitants have long raised their own produce, and even livestock, on our city blocks. What is now the Tomato Garden, on the busy corner of 800 S and 600 E, was part of a larger property owned by multiple generations of the Fletcher family, early residents of the Salt Lake valley. The houses on the land incorporated flourishing kitchen gardens and family fruit trees. In the back of the lot, where our straw-bale greenhouse now stands, a barn was home to a flock of chickens and even a cow. Ray Fletcher Sr. grew a delicious blue-white corn that was much in demand at $0.35 a dozen.
Today, the Tomato Garden is filled with activity that echoes its past while looking to the future. Community gardeners of all ages and income levels harvest the same delicious heirloom crops as Adelaide Fletcher did so many decades ago. A new generation of urban gardeners tends to the rows of corn in our youth garden. And where the Fletchers’ flock of chickens once lived, a richly diverse group of community members gathers each spring to participate in a workshop about how to raise chickens in their own backyards.
