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Wasatch Community Gardens has acquired a special property easement for its Grateful Tomato Garden, which will permanently protect the land for agricultural use, executive director Ashley Patterson announced recently.

"Through this conservation easement, our flagship garden will forever remain a thriving and productive space for the entire city to enjoy," she said. The Trust for Public Land and the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food helped secure the protection.

The plot of land at 800 South and 600 East, near the Salt Lake City TRAX line, once was part of a larger piece of land owned by multiple generations of the Fletcher family, Patterson said. The small urban homestead, which dates to the 1800s, had a milking cow, several sheep, chickens and a garden.

In the late 1980s, the Fletcher family invited Wasatch Community Gardens to use their property as a community garden, primarily serving immigrant residents of the neighborhood. After a community-wide effort that raised $65,000, the non-profit bought the garden from the Fletcher family in 1996.

Today, the Grateful Tomato Garden has community garden plots where individuals and families of all income levels grow food. It also is the primary location for Wasatch Community Gardens' youth programs, summer camps, educational workshops and community events. It has a straw-bale greenhouse, compost bins, a chicken coop and beehives. This year, the group added an outdoor kitchen and an edible demonstration garden.

kathys@sltrib.com