Jackson Free Press

In an empty lot next to a BP gas station on Northside Drive, Erika Roberts pointed to a few tall twigs poking out of the muddy ground, almost indistinguishable from surrounding grass. They don't look much like an orchard, but soon they will be blackberry bushes, blueberry bushes and muscadine vines.

"My husband makes a great muscadine jelly," she said.

Roberts is the program director and administrator of the Jackson Inner-City Gardeners, a group of people who cultivate naturally grown produce on a small lot in Jackson.

"Our mission is to create a sustainable food system in Jackson," Roberts said. In cooperation with the Jackson Medical Mall, the gardeners sell the produce they grow at affordable prices, donate it or eat it themselves.

Each Saturday, Roberts and her husband, "Farmer Tre'," work the garden with about 20 other volunteers, many of them young people who are learning to garden as part of the Jackson Inner-city Gardeners' mentoring program.

This morning, however, people from many different groups were at the garden to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day by helping out in the community garden. While students from Belhaven University clear weeds away from the fences close to the road, Cub Scouts and high school students from Jackson and Clinton turn dirt to prepare it for planting.

"We are honoring the legacy and vision of Martin Luther King Jr. through service, building community and, most of all, building a healthier Jackson and a healthier community," Roberts said.

Down the hill from the orchard, Tre Roberts brought dirt to fill in raised beds where garlic, onions and other produce will grow. At one corner of the garden, Cindy Ayres, from Foot Prints Farm, helps Matthew Weiss, a Cub Scout from Pack 88 in Clinton, turn the soil in one of the beds and prepare it for planting. Ayres said she couldn't think of a better way to spend Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

"The gardening is important, but it's also the fellowship and bringing people together from all over the city," she said.