Toledo Grows is making progress with a $300,000 North Toledo training center that will focus on urban farming and gardening, but the Toledo Botanical Garden outreach program is seeking volunteers to help with construction.

The 50-by-90-foot Oneida City Farm Training Center is expected to be finished in late February. The Oneida Street building will house a classroom, a workshop, and a commercial kitchen for teaching, and two greenhouses primarily for educational purposes will be attached.

Owens Community College's urban agriculture classes are to be housed at the center, as well as a training program for youths who have been incarcerated in Lucas County. Toledo Grows has 12 to 20 youths at any given time going through the 16-week program, and they currently are helping build the center where participants will be taught how to grow plants, start a food business, or work in a greenhouse, officials said.

The center also is to be home to Toledo Grows, which provides resources to local community garden projects on vacant lots and elsewhere, including free seeds, compost, and advice. Dozens of community gardens are added every year, and plots are getting bigger, Michael Szuberla, Toledo Grow's program director, said.

"Our vision is this will be the region's center for urban agriculture," Mr. Szuberla said about the center. "In the last decade, there's been an absolute explosion in urban agriculture."

The training center is to have demonstration gardens from which residents can learn, Mr. Szuberla said. Modular gardens are to be built in the size typical of a backyard, for example, as well as single and double vacant lots, he said.

Produce grown by youth in the jobs-training program is to be sold at a farm stand.

Near the training center under construction, Toledo Grows has a greenhouse that focuses on aquaculture, including raising fish. The center that is under construction is to provide a central spot for urban farming efforts, Karen Ranney Wolkins, executive director of the Toledo Botanical Garden, said.

"It provides a resource to community gardeners and for the other activities going on," she said.

Fund-raising continues for the center, and about two-thirds of the needed money has been raised, Mr. Szuberla said. Toledo Grows also needs volunteer carpenters and others to help with construction, he said.

To donate funds or time to the Toledo Grows training center, call 419-536-5566.

Contact Julie M. McKinnon at: jmckinnon@theblade.com or 419-724-6087.

First Published November 15, 2011, 5:15 a.m.