The hidden garden

Clemson horticulture student turns forgotten pocket of main campus into community garden

Clemson University senior Zay Barton, a horticulture major from Columbia, South Carolina, has been into all things nature since he was little.

"I've always been drawn to it," he says. "My grandma always reminds me of how I used to pick bugs off the trees and bring them in the house, and my mom used to yell at me for bringing bags of rocks inside."

Barton's father, Michael, was a major in the U.S. Army so the family moved every couple of years as his father got stationed at different military bases as he rose through the ranks. Michael's final orders before retiring sent the family to Fort Jackson in Columbia, where they stayed through Barton's formative years at Blythewood High School.

Barton was apathetic about school, at best, and never really thought about college - but when high school graduation began looming in 2019, the thought of working menial jobs for the rest of his life spurred him to action.

Zay Barton stands among the flowers in the MANRRS Community Garden next to the Redfern Health Clinic.

"I realized that I had better come up with a better plan for myself," laughs Barton, who has an easy disposition and friendly demeanor that hint at his Jamaican roots from his dad's side of the family. "I knew I didn't want to work some office job for the rest of my life, and I didn't want to do the military - I'd seen enough of that. So I went to art school at Savannah College of Art and Design at the Atlanta campus to be a cinematographer."

He worked toward that goal for two years until March 2020, when the COVID pandemic shut the world down. By the time he finished that semester and the following summer online, his passion for the job field had faded.

"I've always been very entrepreneurial-minded," he says. "I taught myself Premier Pro and Photoshop, started shooting sports reels for JV and varsity high school teams, and made a name for myself. But even though I had already started a brand and was making money, I did a lot of self-searching during the pandemic. I started thinking - I'm most happy outside, immersed in the elements. All that moving around as a kid, I found a way to stay grounded through nature."

Barton recalls long, happy days spent with his grandfather on his mother, Milissa's, side of the family in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and with his Jamaican grandfather on his father, Michael's, side of the family in Wallace, NC. Both of them kept large gardens at their homes.

"Both of them would always, what felt like, interrupt our frolicking and playing and drop jewels on us in regard to gardening and even livestock every time we visited" says Barton. "We'd be out there for hours at a time; feet in the dirt, hands in the bushes, and sun on our faces."

Barton left cinematography behind and tried tech school for a while in 2021, seeking to pursue a degree in medicinal herbs after obtaining his associates in biology, but the low accreditation rates at the school he sought to attend nagged at him. He decided he'd shoot for Clemson once he finished tech school, but when he shared his plan with his advisors at the time, Barton ended up at Clemson sooner than he thought.

"I was searching all over the country for the right school for me, but in-state was a priority. My advisor told me you might as well just transfer to Clemson at the next possible chance in December," Barton laughs. "I actually was against the idea at first because I had moved around a lot already, school-wise, and I wanted to finish something first. But, here I am!"

Barton says his advisor opened his eyes to the fact Clemson had been the logical choice for him all along.

"Clemson is a land grant school tied to agriculture, so it has a very substantial agriculture program - the best in the state. It's also a top research institution, and that was enough for me. I applied and got in."

Barton transferred to Clemson in 2022 and will graduate in December with a bachelor's in horticulture with a concentration in edibles and a minor in biological sciences.

A year into his studies at Clemson, he noticed an overgrown patch of land next to an out-of-the-way sidewalk between the Redfern Health Center and Newman Hall that looked like it was once a garden or landscape feature.

"The space had been untouched for years," says Barton. "The boxes were overgrown and nothing but dry leaves. Morning glories had completely overrun the whole space."

But Barton saw potential under the tangles of weeds and leaves.

"I emailed someone at Redfern, and they said, 'Oh, I'm not the person to ask. I'll transfer you to so-and-so.' That happened four or five times in one email chain."

The string of emails finally led him to associate professor of pomology Juan Carlos Melgar.

"He was the last one on the email chain," says Barton. "I had already been here a year and had taken classes with him, so he recognized me and said, 'Go for it!' That was April 2023."

Barton cleaned the beds, repaired old ones, added new ones, and began planting. Staff members at Redfern whose office windows looked out on the space were tickled pink. The scraggly brown world outside their windows was being transformed into an oasis of color and life.

Barton named the project the MANRRS (Minorities in Agriculture and Natural Related Resource Sciences) Redfern Community Garden. It is designed and curated to be a key site for experiential learning, horticulture, and agricultural exposure, as well as for producing organic and fresh produce. Today, it's a vibrant garden buzzing with bees and butterflies that flit over leafy green plots growing garden staples like watermelons, cucumbers, strawberries, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and herbs interspersed with bright beds of sunflowers, marigolds, lilies, zinnias and more.

Food grown in the garden is donated to Paw Pantry, a community-wide movement to promote well-being and reduce food insecurity at Clemson. Food is also given away to friends, family, and staff as well. Barton estimates he's donated at least 20 pounds of produce so far.

"One of the things that I have loved about the garden are the conversations that have manifested since it's conception," said Julian Nixon, executive director of inclusive excellence for the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences. "People talk about the desire to create gardens at their homes, sign up for classes, research insects and spending time with their family outdoors. The second thing is that people are seeing passion and education applied. The garden was birthed out of both, and the result is growth. Everyone can see it, and it's beautiful."

Barton echoes Nixon's sentiment about the garden attracting attention. People walking past often stop to chat with him while he's working in it.

"Something about a garden really engages people," he says. "I will always stop what I'm doing, put down my tools, and give them a tour. I believe in experiential learning. The first time I heard those two words [at a summer internship assisting 4H club manager Toya Moore], it resonated in my soul, and that's what I try to embody every day now."

Barton says those chance meetings in the garden have produced a bounty for his own life, as he's received four different job offers stemming from all the work he's put in the garden, two of them coming from people he's met while standing in it. He originally hoped to work in the herbal medical field after he graduates, but the thought and feeling of being a teacher has had a stronger and stronger pull at him lately. Either way, he plans to make the best of his opportunities.

"My mindset is, 'Milk it,'" he says. "Get the most out of it, wherever you're at."

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