Minneapolis gardener transformed gritty city lot into productive urban farm
Resourceful Minneapolis gardener produces a bounty and sows sustainability in the heart of the city.
By Kim Palmer
Star Tribune
Feb 19, 2021
Excerpt:
Lapham’s biggest reclamation project is a formerly vacant, junk-strewn lot in Minneapolis’ urban core that he and others have nurtured into a lush, productive garden that grows apples, plums, berries of all kinds, sunflowers to nourish birds and bees and other pollinator plants.
Lapham doesn’t own the garden; its out-of-state owner has given him permission to grow there.
“They let me garden for free,” said Lapham, 35, whose laid-back demeanor belies his drive to produce. In return, he takes care of maintenance, snow shoveling and trimming branches that dangle into the street.
This compact oasis of urban agriculture at a busy corner in the Central neighborhood is Lapham’s passion. It’s a community garden and a demonstration site, where he leads tours and shares what he’s learned about permaculture — producing food sustainably within a system inspired by natural ecosystems.
Lapham and his gardens were one of six chosen in the Star Tribune’s annual Beautiful Gardens contest, selected by a panel of judges from more than 380 nominations from readers. In this year of pandemic and racial justice reckoning, the contest was changed a bit. Readers were invited to nominate gardens that are beautiful in spirit and contribute to the greater good.
Lapham’s passion for growing food has evolved, although the seed was planted in his bloodline. “All my grandparents were born on farms,” he noted. Growing up in Golden Valley, his family tended a vegetable plot. “We always had a garden, but it wasn’t really intense.”
