After 5: Let the Growing Begin

Hobby gardeners reap more than just veggies and flowers from their annual plantings.

As temperatures climb, people usually seen all buttoned up behind their desks will don boots and gloves and pick up shovels to turn dirt and plant seeds.

They could be healthier for it.

A recent study by the Colorado Master Gardeners program at Colorado State University has revealed hidden benefits: families with home vegetable gardens eat more fruit and vegetables for improved nutrition, and the exercise of gardening can be an escape from job and family pressures.

George Deatz, president of Springfield’s Friends of the Garden club, calls gardening “a tremendous stress reliever.”

“People use it for that form of therapy all the time,” he says.

For Loren Lundstrom, assistant dean for arts and letters and director of international programs at Ozarks Technical Community College, gardening eases her mind and challenges her body.

“You’re out there by yourself,” says Lundstrom, a self-described lifelong gardener. “One of the things I really like about it is you can see the fruits of your labor. You can see your progress – weeds pop up, and you can pull them.”

Retired Springfield orthodontist Stan Horsch was active in flower gardening when he worked.

“It’s very stressful when you’re working in the mouth and people don’t want you in there to start with,” Horsch says. “It was always very relaxing to come home and change clothes and get out in the yard and do something.”

Since retiring in 1992, he devotes more time to his passion.

“I’ve got a flower garden in my own yard, but most of my work is out at Close Memorial Park,” says Horsch, who volunteers a dozen hours a week at the park with up to eight others.

Experts also say what’s grown in the garden besides food has value.

“There has been an increased awareness in the restorative value of plants in hospitals, homes for the aged and senior centers,” says Patrick Byers, horticulture specialist University of Missouri Extension-Greene County Southwest Region.

“Healing gardens” are being constructed for clients, staff and visitors. CoxHealth opened a healing garden in spring 2008, and St. John’s is developing one.

Another trend in southwest Missouri is community gardens, defined as public or private land cared for by a group of people.

Rutledge-Wilson Farm Community Park, for instance, operates a community garden on public property, while The Kitchen Inc. maintains a private one, Byers says. Additionally, the Well Fed Neighbor Alliance has set a goal of starting 10,000 area gardens this year, according to www.wellfedneighbor.ning.com.

This is the garden’s first season at Rutledge-Wilson Farm.

“We had 60 plats available for rent last October,” says Nick Breithaupt, farm manager, noting that rates are between $25 and $40 and half of the plats’ soils are organic. “We provide the plat, manure and soil; the rest is up to them.”

Participants in community garden programs keep what they grow or give it to food banks or those in need.

“The goal of the (Rutledge-Wilson) program is to encourage gardening in an urban setting,” says Breithaupt, adding that gardeners “come and go as they please.”

The Ozarks Area Community Action Corp. Neighborhood Centers started its community garden April 1 in collaboration with Recovery Chapel, according to an OACAC news release. The garden, 3024 W. Nichols St., aims to provide low-income individuals and families an opportunity to plant and harvest crops, use the crops grown to feed themselves and their families, and supplement their income by selling produce in farmers markets.

OACAC has plans to establish community gardens in Christian, Greene, Lawrence, Stone and Taney counties.  

Church communities, such as Second Baptist, South Street Christian and Ozark Presbyterian, also are increasingly developing community gardens, Byers says.

“The produce from the gardens are donated to an in-house food pantry or something larger, such as Ozarks Food Harvest,” Byers says. “I’m seeing a lot of interest in that.”