Nick's contact with the neighborhood residents was equally engaging. He found one particularly inspiring older woman who tended a huge backyard garden. Sometimes she just stopped her work and sat under a tree with her Bible.
"She seemed so feeble and I wondered how she could do so much work in such an enormous garden," said Nick. "People like her were kind and talkative, and thankful for their gardens. It made me feel happy that I was doing this work."
He met another woman who loved working the garden with neighborhood kids. She and Nick sold vegetables together a couple times at the Eastern Market. Afterwards, she distributed the money to "her kids" in proportion to the time they spent working in the garden.
One unexpected but delightful outcome of Nick's internship was a change in his relationship to food. He was used to eating a lot of fast food; it was cheap and tasted good. But after spending so much time growing vegetables in the city's gardens-and eating the fruits of his labor-Nick decided not to eat fast food and instead to opt for fresh produce.
"When you grow the food, it tastes a little better," he said.
Nick was also moved to learn how to cook. He consulted his mother on recipes for the fresh-grown local produce and found that his favorite meal was pesto, which came from the very basil plants he grew and harvested.
"I've become a pesto addict," he said.
Kale became his other favorite dish. This hearty and tough vegetable that most people overlook is one of the healthiest and most inexpensive of all vegetables. It also has powerful antioxidant properties and is rich in beta-carotene, vitamin K, vitamin C, and calcium.
"The internship definitely got me eating kale, which I wouldn't have otherwise touched," said Nick. "Now I love it and have learned how to cook it by steaming it."
When Nick returned to college last fall, he shared his new insights on food with his housemates. He taught them which vegetables were in season, which ones were Michigan-grown, and, of course, they learned how to enjoy pesto and kale.
For Nick, gardening and eating fresh fruits and vegetables has become a way to live a more sustainable lifestyle. "Everyone can have a backyard garden," he said, "or they can go to the farmer's market."
Now that he is graduated, Nick eventually plans to attend law school to become either a public defender or an environmental lawyer. Whatever he ends up doing, however, he knows he'll "definitely have a garden."
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