CLEVELAND, Ohio — Many parts of areas surrounding downtown Cleveland are considered deserted wastelands. But thanks to the efforts of The Ohio State University extension and Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities, the oft-maligned buckle of the Rust Belt is becoming a green belt.

Once weed-spiked lots have turned into a productive community gardens. “The county board that started the farming program called Cleveland Crops did so in 2010 to employ people who had disabilities, and has helped them earn a living by working in the fields,” said Farm Manager Gerry Gross.

It’s not exactly a field, nor anything compared to a real farm. The plot (called Stanard Farm) is located on Cleveland’s east side and comprises just 1.1 acres. It is now the former site of an elementary school.

Gross and his staff are using a variety of season-extension techniques, such as high tunnels and low tunnels to grow as many things as possible for as long as possible – vegetables such as lettuce, beets, carrots, parsley and other herbs right through Cleveland’s harshest winter months.

“They actually earn a living working here,” Gross said. “The No. 1 reason we started this program is to create jobs. The main objective is to decrease the amount of revenue that taxpayers are paying. There are some consumers who have already been removed from the taxpayers’ roll and are living on their own from the wages that they earn here. It helps to get them out of the home, gives them more freedom and the satisfaction of having a job.”

The effort helps provide new job opportunities to a segment of the population that typically lacks such. Since then, the program has added acreage by committing to several other sites throughout Cleveland, including in Ohio City, the East 105th-St. Clair area and South Euclid.

While the program has been successful in its main drive to employ people with developmental disabilities, it was quickly realized the farming off-season would pose a problem for these workers. “We didn’t want to lay them off during the winter,” Gross said. “I love pushing the envelope and believe it is possible to have fresh produce available in Cleveland during the winter.”

So, he has combined his personal experience of growing food in the much-harsher North Dakota weather and technical advice from OSU horticultural and agricultural engineering experts to produce off-season growing techniques.

Stanard Farm now has two high tunnels — plastic-covered, metal-frame structures that look like greenhouses but are much cheaper to build and operate. Inside, a variety of crops grow in raised beds erected from the bricks of the old school and further protected from frost by fabric row covers.

Gross is also experimenting with low tunnels – three-foot-high bent-conduit structures positioned along raised beds and covered with plastic, and which the consumers themselves build at the farm’s shop with assistance from staff. The low tunnels cost only 1/10th as much as the high tunnels, Gross said.

Cleveland Crops’ main customers are area restaurants that like to incorporate local foods into their menus and like to experiment with “unique produce,” as Gross puts it. While not certified organic, all of Cleveland Crops’ fruits and vegetables are grown without the use of synthetic fertilizers or pesticides.

Cleveland Crops is only one of several urban gardening or farming initiatives supported by OSU extension in Cuyahoga County. “So far we have generated 49 new local foods microenterprises through our educational training programs,” said Marie Barni, director of the county’s extension office.

Next for Cleveland Crops is the construction of a greenhouse to boost year-round production of fruits and vegetables, and to add high-value crops such as flowers. The Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center has been providing technical advice for that endeavor.

“Thanks to these efforts, this winter we have eight to 10 staff fully employed, and 20 to 25 consumers employed part-time,” Gross said. “We plan to have even more people employed in the coming year.”