The City of Minneapolis is offering 13 vacant lots to lease for community gardens.

The spaces are not appropropriate for development, which means they will remain available to gardners for years. They can be had (to qualifying groups) through the city's Homegrown Minneapolis community garden pilot program. It started in 2010 with 18 lots. Five of the lots are already leased to community groups.

The new lots are available first-come, first-served to qualifying groups. Experienced community garden groups may be eligible for three- to five-year leases, while groups gardening for the first time will start with one-year leases.

A qualifying group will be a not-for-profit or a group with a not-for-profit sponsor. The garden will need to have liability insurance. Applicants should be ready to discuss the layout of the community garden, how it will be managed and how it will engage and benefit the community.

For more information go to the Homegrown web site.