In the next few weeks the tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers will be ripening up in a handful of empty lots around South Baton Rouge. The vegetables, planted by groups of neighbors, youth, and garden advocates, will be organic, free, and delicious.

“This area, South Baton Rouge, is a food desert,” Stephanie Elwood, one of the founders of The South Garden Project, explained to me while she patted dirt around a freshly planted blueberry bush. “There is no readily available fresh produce in the area. So if you don’t have a vehicle, you really don’t have immediate access to fresh produce.”

I met Elwood and her partner-in-gardening, Marguerite Green, at a garden on Eddie Robbinson Street on a rainy afternoon last week.

“Community gardens are a way to bring the produce inside the neighborhood,” Elwood said. “Rather than walking to the corner store to get a forty and a Twinkie.”

The South Garden Project is a collaborative effort between members of the community, the youth of the community, and two young horticulturists. The project is something like a garden start-up: the girls come in, get the neighbors and the youth together to build, plant, and maintain the garden. The idea is that after a few months, the project will pull out, and the garden will continue to grow under the stewardship of the neighborhood.

“Garden mothers and fathers, that’s what we’ve taken to calling them,” Green said, referring to the neighbor “Garden Advocates” that assume leadership of the garden. “Ideally, we would like to find someone from the block.”

“It’s who sees the garden, who gets motivated from the gardens, who decides to do a garden in their back yard because they saw one on Eddie Robinson,” said Elwood.

“It’s really a community garden movement, it’s getting people conscious of where your food comes from.”

A community garden can serve a plate full of purposes. First, it gets the community together. It’s part functional, part beautification.

“This is great, you’re happy to see it when you drive by every day,” Green explained. “There needs to be a lot of participation.”

The food itself is an obvious perk. The produce harvested from the garden is divided up among the families or the children that gardened that day. And, Elwood pointed out, it proves to be a great way to get kids to eat vegetables.

It’s also a fun, safe and educational place for children to go during the summer months, or after school.

“A lot of the youth really take leadership roles,” Elwood said. “The kids don’t always have all the opportunities to go to a summer camp. It’s kind of like bringing a summer program, or an after-school program to the youth.”

The South Garden Project is not a non-profit. It’s more like “volunteer gardenization.” Most of the supplies are either purchased by Green, Elwood, or neighbors. The project has received a number of grants, from Home Depot to the University Presbyterian Church, as well as occasional donations from places like the Center For Planning and Excellence. But the gardens rely heavily on the kind hearts of “Garden Adovocates,” and enthusiastic neighborhood supporters.

Seeds and soil are requisite, and so is water – in fact, one of the biggest obstacles for a garden’s sustainability is getting watered.

“Recently we’ve decided that, for us to leave gardens, they need irrigation systems,” Green said. “I think what we need most – our biggest donation need – is a water meter.”

“Of course, we’re always in need of money,” she added.

For more information about The South Garden Project, visit www.TheSouthGardenProject.Tumblr.com.