PETAL, La. (AP) - If it weren’t for a supportive community, Bobby and Dorothy Fennell might have stopped growing vegetables in their garden.
But every year, Bobby gets out Old Pete, his 1950 McCormick tractor, and prepares the rows that will be filled with seasonal vegetables from squash, okra and tomatoes in the summer to pumpkins, turnips and onions in the fall.
“I’ve known the Fennells for years,” said neighbor Denise Jones. “Their garden is always so beautiful.
“They are the sweetest people I’ve ever met, they are just like family.”
People stop at the Fennells’ shed, which serves as a sort of country store. They pick up and weigh the vegetables and put money in the box.
Visitors pay by the honor system, but if someone can’t afford to pay, the Fennells don’t keep track. More often than not, a person who doesn’t have cash one day will often stop by and leave some another day, Bobby said.
Some days, you’ll go down there and there will be a lot of vegetables gone and no money in the box,” Bobby said. “The next day, there won’t be many vegetables gone and a lot of money in the box.”
“If they don’t pay that day, they’ll pay the next day.”
The Fennells don’t do it for the money, they say. They do it for their neighbors.
The produce from the garden is placed in containers in an open shed next to the garden, so passersby can stop to pick from whatever is available that day. Signs on the shed say what is available and the going price per pound.
A small wooden box is mounted near the scale for cash or checks to be left for the Fennells.
“Each year, more comes in than goes out,” Bobby said. “And that’s what we’re after, ’cause it’s expensive. So long as I have enough to do it again next year.”
Bobby Fennell said if someone comes by and doesn’t pay for the vegetables, “that’s between him and God.”
“Then again, if he’s hungry and I won’t feed him, that’s between me and God,” he said. “And I don’t want much of nothing to get between me and God, so it all works out.”
But Jones said the couple “has a generous heart for people who can’t pay.”
Jones said she enjoys driving by the garden and catching a glimpse of what “Mr. Bobby” is growing.
“The first time I stopped by his house I was amazed at the variety of fresh vegetables he had grown,” she said. “I remember asking him why he plants such a large garden, and he told me he does it for his community and neighbors.”
And that’s what keeps the Fennells going year after year.
“People have just been good to us, it’s a good community,” Bobby said.
Dorothy said most people find out about “Pawpaw’s” garden through word of mouth, but the couple’s daughter, Vicki Grinnell, also maintains a Facebook page to let people know what’s available in the garden.
Grinnell, a second-grade teacher with Petal schools, said she used to bring her students on a field trip to see the garden in May so they could see how food is grown. The children were encouraged to pick some of the vegetables and even sample them on the spot.
The school district later stopped allowing field trips in May, so Bobby brought the garden to the school.
The children now learn how to prepare the soil and plant the seeds at the beginning of the school year and reap the benefits of their labor. The process begins again in the spring with a different round of vegetables.
The students get to see what the different plants look like and keep an eye on the vegetables they planted.
“Lots of parents tell me their kids won’t eat this or that, but if they grow it they will usually try it,” Grinnell said. “Sometimes they don’t like it, but most of the time they do.”
“Usually if they pick it, they’ll eat it,” her father agreed.
The leftover vegetables are sold to school staff and parents. The money usually goes back into the garden. This year, however, the money went toward helping people affected by the Jan. 21 tornado.
Bobby helped his daughter write a grant to help pay for the garden, which allowed them to purchase soaker hoses and an electric fence to keep out deer in the winter time. Solar cells power the fence, so there is no other cost.
Now the students can keep the garden going year-round, Grinnell said, with three crops raised each year. The students learn about management and finances, and participate in writing and research activities centered around the garden.
“And hopefully it will keep funding itself year after year,” she said.
Even though the Fennells are 71 and stay busy with the garden, both work outside the home.
Bobby works two days a week operating a mower for Forrest County, and does it for others when he gets a job request.
“Gardening is a full-time job,” Grinnell said. “He doesn’t give himself enough credit.”
Dorothy is a full-time certified nursing assistant at Bedford Alzheimer’s Care Center in Hattiesburg.
She is involved with the Lions Club in Petal. Her daughter and husband agree she is “a natural-born caregiver.”
“She never sits still,” Grinnell said.
“If we won the lottery, it would be broke in a month,” Bobby said. “She’d give it all away.”
Dorothy also likes to spend time with her family and friends on the porch.
Grinnell said on top of the gardening, her father likes to keep records of what he has grown and how the garden does each year.
“He keeps a farm journal,” she said. “He’s very meticulous, very academic about it.”
That way Bobby can look back and see what he planted, when he planted it and how long it takes the plants to grow, he said.
Bobby also likes to “go to Ward’s in the morning and drink coffee with a bunch of old men,” he said.
His daughter said he likes to read a lot.
Some of the people who pick up vegetables from the Fennells’ garden like to stop and talk with the couple. Some even stop to help with the garden or sit on the porch and shell peas.
“There are two different types of people who come by,” Grinnell said. “There’s people who used to shell peas on their grandparents’ porch, like I did and it’s just nostalgic to them.
“The others who are just younger ones and they want to eat fresh food, they might not pick up fresh beans from the grocery store but when they’re out here and they see the garden and they know it came from that garden, there’s just something different about it.”
“They want to sit down and have that bowl in front of them,” Dorothy said.
Even though it’s a lot of work, the Fennells say are committed to continuing their garden, because they feel they’re the ones on the receiving end.
“People put notes in the box, telling them how much they appreciate it,” Grinnell said.
Bobby recently had back trouble so couldn’t get out and work in the garden as usual, so friends would stop by to help.
“One friend stopped by and said, ’I’ve got two hours, what do you want me to do,’ ” Grinnell said.
“It’s turned into a major obligation - it’s a job now,” Bobby said with a laugh. “The trouble is, people come to expect it, but they’ve been so good to us.
“We’ve got some good people out here.”
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