Robert Comstock has been gardening since he was 15. But now at 70 years old, with his diabetes diagnosis and struggles with kidney failure, he hasn’t been able to care for his plants on his own.
But he has help. Comstock uses the Green Urban Lunch Box, an organization that targets food insecurity in the Salt Lake Valley. He signed up to be a garden host for its “Back Farms” program, which sends volunteers to local seniors’ backyard gardens to care for them and harvest fruits and vegetables. The program is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.
Comstock heard about the program in a community council meeting three years ago. He’s been pleased with the way his South Salt Lake garden looks ever since he began hosting. But more than that, he said he’s seen a positive shift in the way he views the world.
He’s lost a lot of mobility since his Type 2 diabetes diagnosis at 57, he said. His recent kidney failure also requires him to be in dialysis three days a week, for about four hours a day. As someone who worked with his hands as a wood shop public school teacher, a decrease in being able to be active had an impact, he said.
“All that produced in me tremendous depression and feeling like I could no longer do the things I loved,” he said. “Now I can participate with them in the process of seeing new life grow in the garden.”
Plants have always been an important part of Comstock’s life, he said. He grew up in Redlands, California, next to orange tree orchards. As he watched them die out and become developed land, he resolved to do his part in growing organic food, he said.
He taught his children to grow Swiss chard, green beans and tomatoes. He also helped get a grant approved for a greenhouse at Okra Hills Middle School, where he worked.
Still, throughout his lifetime, he’s watched small farms decrease little by little in the West.
“This Wasatch Front used to be gardens of Eden,” he said. “Going up, all the way to Brigham City were all the fruit orchards. They’re all cut down.”
That’s why he’s decided to put his support behind the Green Urban Lunch Box where he can, he said. He believes its cause is a way to reinvigorate small organic farming in Salt Lake.
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Jessica Collette, the Back Farms program director for Green Urban Lunch Box, prepares to plant fruit and vegetable seedlings in a backyard garden in Murray, June 6, 2023.
A need that some ‘don’t realize exists’
A couple volunteers and the program director Jessica Collette now visit his home in South Salt Lake several times a week. They let him choose which tomato plants they grow, and they’ve also planted bell peppers, squash, cucumbers and eggplants.
Comstock has been impressed by Collette’s expertise, he said. He’s been growing squash for 55 years, and she was able to address an infection in his plant he had never known how to fix. He likes learning from her, he said.
The produce is divided into thirds, and Comstock receives one third, the volunteers take home the second third, and the final portion is donated to senior centers where the Green Urban Lunch Box hosts free farmers markets.
Part of the organization’s mission is eliminating senior food insecurity in the valley, Collette said. Around 30,000 seniors in Utah have experienced hunger in the past year, which amounts to 7% of Utah’s population over the age of 60, according to the United Health Foundation.
By feeding both the hosts of the garden and the seniors who visit the organization’s farmers markets, she sees the program as a benefit.
“It rose out of a need that maybe people don’t realize exists,” Collette said.
Seniors facing hunger experience technology barriers when it comes to the typical ways of getting help, she said. For example, registering for food stamps online can become an issue for those with vision problems, and transportation can also be difficult to arrange if they need to visit a place to sign up in person.
The Green Urban Lunch Box provides an alternative link to the outside world for those seniors, she said.
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Around 30,000 seniors in Utah have experienced hunger in the past year.
The Back Farms program currently serves 45 gardens spread across Sandy, Millcreek, Rose Park and Taylorsville. It’s at capacity right now for the amount of gardens it can take on, Collette said. She and two other garden leaders split two trucks to visit each of the gardens throughout the week. In order to hire more staff and buy more vehicles, the organization would need more funding, Collette said.
There’s currently a 2024 waitlist to host a garden, which is about 15 people long. But Collette hopes the program can expand over the years — 10 years ago, it started with just 15 gardens.
Ten years from now, she would want to see the program servicing 100 gardens.
“I’d love to meet whatever need we can here,” she said. “If we could double the number of gardens, that would be great.”
But she doesn’t want the Green Urban Lunch Box to be the only one. That’s why Collette is developing a playbook, so other Utahns and people in places such as Kentucky, Mississippi and Louisiana — where a fifth of people over the age of 60 experience hunger — can learn from the organization and start their own.
“There’s other communities that I think could really benefit from this,” Collette said.
‘I’ve learned so much’
On top of the ability to provide produce to seniors, Collette said programs like this help volunteers connect with both the community and the environment. For her, the best part of her work is seeing that connection in motion.
“My favorite thing is when we plant a seed and it actually grows, and someone who has never ever gardened before sees how it works,” she said. “It’s really magical.”
Even after nearly a decade of gardening, the process still amazes her too, she said.
Many of the volunteers who offer to help Collette already have gardening experience, but they often live in apartments where they don’t have land to grow anything. In that way, the work becomes an outlet for them to go back to their passion, she said.
Sarah Puzzo is one of those volunteers. The 31-year-old started working with the organization two years ago. She grew up on her grandparents’ farm, but when she moved to Salt Lake City, she didn’t have the space to grow food.
“I was just looking for something to connect myself to the community,” Puzzo said. “And work outside and work with the land.”
Although she enjoys getting back to her roots, Puzzo said her favorite part has been interacting with the seniors who host the gardens, she said.
“I think it’s a good way for people who might otherwise struggle with loneliness to continue contributing,” she said. “They’re still providing such a valuable and generous thing for their community. I just think that’s really great.”
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Jessica Collette finds some lavender to decorate her overalls while working in a backyard garden.
Another volunteer, 59-year-old Mary Ann Powles, lived in New Jersey for the majority of her life. She worked for a pharmaceutical company for 30 years before she moved to Utah around four years ago. She always loved gardening on the East Coast, she said.
“Science is my thing,” she said. “This is science.”
But she wasn’t sure how to get started growing food in a new climate. So she started volunteering at the Green Urban Lunch Box last year.
“I just love it,” she said. “I’ve learned so much about the Utah soil and what to grow and how to grow it. Every week I learn something new from [Collette].”
Powles’ favorite things to grow in Utah are beets and okra, as well as tomatoes, which she used to grow in New Jersey too.
The Green Urban Lunch Box also has two other programs alongside Back Farms: FruitShare, which pairs with fruit tree owners around the valley to help harvest; and the Small Farm Initiative, which offers training in urban farming at the organization’s own acre of land in South Salt Lake.
The organization also offers apprenticeships for anyone willing to learn how to work with the earth in a more urban landscape. For more information, visit thegreenurbanlunchbox.com.
