By Tobie Blanchard
LSU AgCenter
On a breezy sunny evening in May, before the heat of summer settles in, a dozen or so people gathered in what was once a vacant lot in Baton Rouge’s Zion City but is now a growing community garden.
Only minor work was being done in the garden that day — a little pruning, a couple of plantings. Mostly, the group sat in lawn chairs, while Clifford Payne tended hamburgers on a grill. This lot, which was filled with waist-high weeds just a few months earlier, has become a meeting spot for the community.