Gerald Anderson’s young son tried fried squash and onions for the first time this summer.

“He liked it!” Anderson said.

The Virginia Street resident grew the squash himself in Farmville’s first community garden located at the corner of Virginia and Blanton streets.

Virginia Extension agent Pauline Stokes, who initiated the Farmville Grows project, believes the  harvest will be twofold. Already garden neighbors are enjoying healthy home-grown food along with a renewed sense of neighborhood pride.

“As far as I know, this is the first community garden in Farmville,” neighborhood coordinator Rita Moseley said. “I think this garden got everybody to come together, so we could be more of a neighborhood. A lot of us didn’t even know each other.”

Now neighbors are meeting in the garden every day to share gardening or cooking tips along with neighborhood news.

Eulalia Jackson, who stopped by to check on the vegetables in her plot, pointed to a cucumber almost ready to harvest.

“Isn’t it great!” she said. “I can have that in my salad for dinner. My kids love coming over here, too.”

Jackson, one of five girls in her family, commented that she learned to garden from her father.

“It took

awhile, but once I started planting here in this garden it came back on me,” she said.

Last spring, Jackson enrolled her 14-year-old daughter Alpiniki in “Teen Cuisine.”

“I told her teacher that this garden is why I signed her up for that class,” Jackson said. “Teen Cuisine teaches children how to be self-sufficient. They actually make full meals, learn how to use a knife and learn about food safety.”

Jackson, who currently has melons, sweet basil, broccoli, and parsley in her garden plot, is already planning a fall garden.”

That is exactly the response organizers of the project hoped to hear. Farmville Grows is operated through the Prince Edward County Extension SNAP-ED Family Nutrition Program under Stokes’ direction. The garden is located on land owned by the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity on a lot too small for a house.

“This is something we’ve talked about for a number of years,” Farmville Habitat’s Executive Director Jayne Johnson said. “We were so pleased to see the lot put to good use and the neighborhood coming together. Habitat’s goal is to build neighborhoods as well as houses, and a community garden is the perfect way to do it.”

To get the garden project going, Stokes paid a visit to the Virginia Street neighborhood where she contacted Rita Moseley.

“Rita and I had a meeting, and we talked to the residents,” Stokes said. “In the past, I think that’s one thing the others didn’t do — contact the residents. The residents agreed to the garden project, and we started from there.”

The Farmville Grows Community Garden that evolved is a partnership that includes Virginia Cooperative Extension, Prince Edward County SNAP-Ed Family Nutrition Program, Virginia Cooperative Extension Heart of Virginia Master Gardener’s Association, Community Development Institute Head Start and Farmville Area Habitat for Humanity.

Gloria Lockett, Head Start community and partnership manager, is one of the partners, and she looks forward to bringing children to the garden.

“It would be nice for the Head Start kids to come here and see something growing,” she said.

Planters to serve as a hands-on learning experience for Head Start youngsters are on the to-do list for Stokes.

“I’m thinking about asking the industrial arts classes at the high school to build a little train with a caboose to use as a planter for the younger kids,” Stokes said. “Then children can come out here and plant their own little gardens.”

Stokes has something in mind for senior citizens as well.

“My vision is to have at least four raised garden beds for senior citizens or handicapped,” Stokes said. “I hope somebody will donate materials for that project.”

Many in the community, she noted, have donated supplies and time to make the garden a reality.

Southern States Farmer’s Cooperative employee Betsy Jenkins gave a “Plot Saver Deer Barrier,” Stokes said. “Rev. Vincent Eanes plowed up the garden for us, and Habitat donated cinder blocks to section off the plots. Lowe’s gave us a huge discount on plants, tools, and a tiller and weed eater, and Master Gardener Mary Dimmie brought top soil.”

Last year, Longwood’s Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. volunteered a Saturday to clean up the site and pick up trash. Another group of Longwood students came out this year as a community service project to help till the garden spots.

“It meant so much to the people in the neighborhood to see all the young people coming out to help,” Johnson said.

“People in the community have been great, doing little things for us, Stokes said. “It all helps.”

Neighbors who work in the garden also do their part. Travis “Charlie” Brooks, who lives across Virginia Street, often runs a hose from his house to water the garden plots. He is justifiably proud of his garden plot filled with cherry tomatoes, strawberries, and watermelons.

“I planted some flowers, too,” Brooks said. “My kids love coming over here.”

Another neighbor, Gerald Anderson, agrees.

“I grew up in Buckingham, and we had gardens all the time,” he said. “Fried green tomatoes, stuff like that, kids don’t get to experience it. Another thing, it brings the ‘old days’ to the kids.”

Thinking ahead, Stokes is looking at cooking or canning demonstrations at the garden site.

“We have a mobile kitchen,” she said. “We could bring it out here.”

Stokes believes the garden is already helping her meet a goal of lowering obesity rates among children and youth in Prince Edward and surrounding counties.

“I always say that we live from the earth,” Stokes said. “The goal of Farmville Grows is to learn from each other and nature.

A common ground for neighborhood growth, Farmville’s community garden has produced a noticeable harvest.