Stonington - Clients of the Gemma E. Moran United Way Labor Food Center soon will have access to fresh produce for much of the year thanks to a 2-acre garden planned for Coogan Farm.

The Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center, which has purchased 32 acres of the farm to preserve it and to open a heritage center, announced this week that the Giving Garden will be the first major initiative for the Route 27 property.

"We like the idea of keeping the farm in Coogan Farm," Maggie Jones, the nature center's executive director, said in a statement. "This has been part of the plan all along, and the partnership with the United Way is a great first step. This also will provide lots of programming opportunities for us, and we are excited about that."

The garden will be divided into smaller plots, which will be available for sponsorship by businesses and organizations. Groups or individuals will garden the plots and then donate the food that is grown to the food center.

Food will be harvested from April through November and picked up Monday through Friday. The food center will distribute the fresh produce at its feeding centers and via its Mobile Food Pantry, which visits towns across the region. The food center distributes 2.7 million pounds of food annually to 63 programs that serve 91 feeding sites across New London County.

In the nature center's announcement, Virginia Mason, president and CEO of the United Way of Southeastern Connecticut, said that until now, its ability to provide fresh vegetables "was inconsistent at best." She said the garden will elevate the agency's food distribution "to a new level of excellence."

She called the reliable source of produce for six to seven months of the year "a gift to the many in our community who are food-insecure."

"This is an extremely exciting project," she said. "The vision of it, the strength of the partnership, and the commitment to providing fresh produce to a population who badly need that nutritional support. The availability of fresh produce will make a measurable difference in the health of the recipients."

The Robert G. Youngs Family Foundation has provided a grant to the nature center to start the garden. Administered by Scott Bates, Barbara Bates and Lisa Tepper Bates of Stonington, the foundation was created in memory of Robert Youngs, a relative of Scott Bates who died in 2011.

Youngs, who worked as a master carpenter for the New London school system, placed his assets in a trust with the instruction that they be used to "benefit the people of the New London area." The garden is the largest project the foundation has undertaken thus far, according to Lisa Tepper Bates.

Local horticulturist Ian Cooke of Mystic has been hired to run the project. He plans to use natural gardening methods such as pigs to clear the undergrowth and a solar-powered well in addition to timing plantings so each plot is harvested once a week to provide a consistent variety of food.

Information about garden sponsorships is available by calling the nature center at (860) 536-1216.

j.wojtas@thday.com