In 2007, USF professors Melinda Stone and Seth Wachtel and eleven students enrolled in the year-long Garden Project living learning community transformed an overgrown lot into a campus organic garden. Over the next four years, Garden Project students and faculty installed irrigation and water catchment systems, planted an orchard, painted garden murals, and designed and built an outdoor kitchen, greenhouse, toolshed, and a solar power system. In 2011, responding to overwhelming amount of student interest, the professors transitioned the Garden Project into a minor in Urban Agriculture.