The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga recently updated their general education curriculum with an eye toward the essential learning outcomes identified by the Association of American Colleges and Universities through its Liberal Education and America's Promise (LEAP) initiative. Like many other campuses across the country, money is tight, budgets are lean or have been cut, and interdisciplinary connections are sorely needed. Even so, the challenge to build, grow, and inspire must be overcome. This article describes a project involving the creation of a teaching garden, contextualized as an outdoor learning laboratory and alternative learning space. The author describes the garden as a launching site for accredited academic courses, informal workshops and campus events involving food and culture. The project supports hands on knowledge of plant biology, and careful long term thinking between the relationship between economics and ethics as one example. In the garden students find fertile ground for conversations and engaged learning. across many academic disciplines, and the author shares how other programs are introducing the garden into their courses.