
DATE: Sunday, August 17, 1997               TAG: 9708160065

SECTION: HOME                    PAGE: G1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MARY FLACHSENHAAR, CORRESPONDENT 

                                            LENGTH:  118 lines

COMMUNITY ROOTS GARDENERS SHARE SPACE AND CAMARADERIE IN RENTED PLOTS AT TWO NEIGHBORHING PORTSMOUTH CHURCHES

IN TWO LUSH gardens near the corner of High Street and Cedar Lane in Portsmouth grow corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, the typical summertime vegetables. Sunflowers, marigolds and zinnias border the rows of edibles.

And something else grows in the gardens that lie across the street from each other at the busy intersection. Fellowship and teamwork have taken deep root at the communal garden plots at Green Acres Presbyterian and St. Andrew Lutheran churches. The gardeners, who pay a small yearly fee to work these plots, reap more than just good things to eat.

``The great advantage here over a home garden is the comradeship,'' says Dave Spanagel, who was a founding father of the communal garden at Green Acres Presbyterian in 1973. Today more than half of the 26 20-by-20-foot plots there are rented for $25 annually by church members, the rest by friends and neighbors of the church.

Nine families tend plots behind St. Andrew for an annual fee of $30 per plot. Only two are church members. One gardener, Lindy Ridgway, has plots at both churches.

At both gardens, renters are responsible for keeping their plots well-groomed year round. Each church provides water, and Green Acres' rental fee includes use of communally owned rototillers and lawn mowers.

The group garden at St. Andrew started in 1971. Back then church members made donations for the produce, and the money went toward the church's social ministry.

Some members of Green Acres Presbyterian used the St. Andrew garden in those early years until a group of them, including Spanagel, suggested that their church start a garden of its own. A garden in the sunny church yard made sense, Spanagel recalled, because many yards in the neighborhood, his own included, were too shady for growing.

Now in the midst of a rich summer harvest, the gardeners come to weed, water and pick, usually early in the morning and at dusk.

Vic Sykes, one of the original and current gardeners at Green Acres, says, ``When everyone hits here at the same time, there's often more talking than digging.''

So friendships grow along with the vegetables.

That's what Ridgway, who grows corn at St. Andrew and ``a little bit of everything else'' at Green Acres, likes best about the gardens.

``The folks here are wonderful,'' she says. ``I have such a good time, my produce is almost secondary.''

Camaraderie is the lure for Bill and Ginny Porter, who live next door to St. Andrew and have been gardening there for several years. Currently Bill manages the garden for the church, making a plot plan and collecting fees.

``Even though my yard is big enough for a garden, it's just more fun when everyone's out together,'' he says. ``We're always talking, finding out what's going on.''

At both gardens there is always much speculation about who will produce the first tomato. And on both sides of the street, tips are traded and so are the vegetables. The Porters are the only family to grow blackberries, so they hear many offers like, ``How about some hot peppers for a bucket of berries?''

When there are more crops than the gardeners can use themselves, the surplus is set out at Sunday services at each church, for members of the congregation to take.

The Porters make sure nothing goes to waste. They keep a steady supply of vegetables flowing to their three grown children and turn much of their yield into good winter eating. Many days Ginny is up at 5:30 a.m., making pickles, preserves, tomato sauce and salsa, and canning tomatoes, green beans and corn.

``We don't buy any produce at the grocery store,'' Bill says.

At the Green Acres garden, a familiar and beloved sight is the '63 Buick parked at the garden's edge with its trunk of garden supplies propped open. That means that James and Ellen Mintz, church gardeners since 1980, are hard at work somewhere in their three meticulous plots.

``We don't have a garden, we have a farm,'' says Ellen, a member of the Sterling Point Garden Club for 43 years. ``We grow everything in the world including a fall garden of beans, okra, collards and kale.'' The couple usually eats three vegetables at a meal, she says.

Ellen adorns her church garden with the flowers that won't grow in her shaded backyard nearby. Zinnias, marigolds, cleome and sunflowers poke out from among the tomato, cucumber, squash, potato and cabbage plants.

``It's just the two of us,'' Ellen says, ``so we eat what we can, freeze some and give away the rest to friends and neighbors.''

The Mintzes' love of gardening has been an inspiration to Linda-Marie Burton, a critical-care nurse at Maryview Medical Center who has gardened at Green Acres for four years. When she tends her two plots two or three times a week, tranquillity descends, she says.

Burton, self-described as ``an old-fashioned farm girl who's been gardening since I was 14,'' enjoys experimenting. This year she is raising roly-poly zucchini, which grows round instead of long, and heirloom varieties of winter squash and blue corn.

The magic of the garden is contagious, Burton says.

``You'll be standing there gardening and people stopped at the traffic light on High Street will honk and wave,'' she says.

Even from a distance, folks appreciate this peaceful corner of the world where there are no quarrels over boundaries and sharing is the rule of the land. ILLUSTRATION: STEVE EARLEY COLOR PHOTOS/The Virginian-Pilot

Linda-Marie Burton...

Charles Porter...

Dave Spanagel...

Bill Stiles'...

Photos by STEVE EARLEY/The Virginian-Pilot

A rabbit eyes vegetables in the communal garden at Green Acres

Presbyterian. Linda-Marie Burton, who rents a plot there, doesn't

worry. ``There's enough for everybody,'' she says.

Kirby Ridgway, left, gets help pulling weeks from his 12-year-old

son, Ben, center, and a family friend, Jason Cummings, 14, at St.

Andrew Lutheran Church. Cummings jumps back to avoid getting sprayed

by the sprinkler. The Ridgways also rent a plot at Green Acres