• 
• CLASS
• JOBS
• AUTO
• HOMES

Growing gardeners: Local horticulturalist shares her space

Photo

Photo by Dan Lassiter

LaPrairie 4-H members, from left, Maddie Hodge, 10, Katie Manna, 11 and Laura Prentice, 12, plant a row of beans for a new community garden at Nancy Nienhuis' Good Acres farm on Saturday.

LA PRAIRIE TOWNSHIP — Nancy Nienhuis is growing them in every variety: young, old, urban, rural, talented and green.

The only thing more varied than the gardeners is their vegetables.

Nienhuis is the gardening superintendent at the Rock County 4-H Fair, and over the years a piece of her La Prairie Township farm has become a community garden for Janesville gardeners.

“I get a kick out of the variety of people,” Nienhuis said. “It almost compares to the variety of vegetables out here.”

The members of the La Prairie 4-H Club are the newest group to scratch out a vegetable plot in Nienhuis’ yard on La Prairie Town Hall Road south of Janesville.

On Saturday morning, 10 girls of elementary school age dug rows and watered seeds.

Their little rows of beans, peas, broccoli and onions are tucked up against a vast cornfield. The irrigator will help the 4-Hers a little with their watering duties, Nienhuis said.

Club families signed up for one week at a time to tend the garden, said Diane Runde, 4-H mom and Craig FFA teacher.

Produce will be donated to the Salvation Army and ECHO, Runde said.

Runde’s son, Justin, wrote a grant to We Energies to get the garden started, she said.

It took less than an hour for 10 girls to plant 20 rows of vegetables. Afterwards, they still had plenty of energy to play with some day-old ducklings in the yard.

Not all the gardeners are so spry, she said.

Herbert Snodgrass is a retired Janesville physician who’s been gardening in Nienhuis’ yard for 20 years.

At 94, he still enjoys growing vegetables for himself, his wife and their neighbors at Cedar Crest in Janesville.

“Tomatoes are easy to just give away to your friends, and they’re always appreciated,” he said.

Snodgrass uses a wrapping-paper tube to drop seeds into rows so he doesn’t have to bend, Nienhuis said.

Nehru’s generously supplies the soil, some equipment and a little elbow grease in the form of a helpful 12-year-old granddaughter, said Snodgrass.

Snodgrass retired in 1980 and has had a lot of fun in his garden over the years, he said.

“That’s my life now,” Snodgrass said. “I’m no longer a medical expert. Old people will ask me medical questions, but gardening is what I do now.”

Snodgrass said Nienhuis is generous like no other person he knows.

But it works out well for her, she said.

The gardeners are good company, as are a chainsaw carver who works behind the barn and an attorney who keeps bees in Nienhuis’ garden and orchard.

“People are always asking me, ‘Aren’t you lonesome all by yourself out there in the country?’” Nienhuis said. “Nope. I’m sure not.”