Urban Gardens Flourishing in Detroit

DETROIT - It's a growing trend in the city of Detroit.  Urban farming is transforming vacant, blighted land.  Where there once were abandoned homes and empty lots, there's now hope and fresh food.

Johnny Martin is the proud caretaker of a blossoming urban garden at Jefferson and St. James.  He used to make a living working on manhole covers, but lately he's been volunteering and pouring his love into a small patch of land.

"So, you have to treat it just like you would treat a child, like a newborn baby," said Martin.  "We have zucchini.  We have squash.  We have greens."

What was once an empty lot is now helping feed the hungry, and it's happening all over the city.

"Detroit has the most amount of unused land of any city per capita in the United States," said Urban Farming Founder Taja Sevelle. "I started to become acquainted with the vast amounts of unused land and the job loss that was occurring here in the city, and I thought, 'Wow. Why don't we just plant on the land?'"

Sevelle is a former recording artist, who once worked with Prince.  What started with her seed of an idea in 2005 has taken root and grown.  The numbers are staggering.  It's estimated Detroit has more than 25,000 acres or 40 square miles of vacant land.  That's nearly enough space to cover the entire city of San Francisco.

However, thanks to Urban Farming and hundreds of volunteers, the city now has more than 800 urban gardens.  The group even planted one on the grounds of FOX 2 to show us how it's done.

"I think it's terrific as opposed to just letting it sit and go to waste.  I think it's a very positive thing for the community," said Devin Williams.

We met her as she was gathering crops in her neighborhood garden at Linwood and Gladstone where tomatoes were ripe for the picking.

We also found volunteers with a drug rehab program working in the fields doing community service; an assignment that made an impression.

"The neighborhood's kind of derelict, but with programs like this, maybe you start the uplift of the neighborhood," said James Myers.

That's exactly what the founders of Urban Farming have in mind.  Their mission is to end hunger in our generation while greening the globe.  By the end of last year, they say their gardens here and across the country produced enough food to feed more than 400,000 people.  Everything that's grown is free for anyone who needs it.

What started out small could soon become big business in the city.  Several large scale farming projects have already been proposed involving multi-million dollar investments and dozens of acres of land transformed.

While Detroit city planners develop new rules for land use, Urban Farming volunteers continue to make good use of the land.  Martin believes 400 people visited his garden this summer alone.

"I'm not asking for anything for it.  All I'm asking is come and pick what you need.  Don't be greedy.  Leave some for the others," said Martin.

The city that once revolutionized manufacturing could end up leading the world in urban farming.  The industry was big in Detroit from the 1700s until the early twentieth century.  So, you could say we're returning to our roots.