VENTURA : Garden Plants Seeds of Pride in Community

William Harrison, 72, a retired chemist who worked on the atomic bomb during World War II, knelt in the dirt Saturday, tossing aside hunks of sod.

Nearby, Bob Torst, 34, made the wooden handle of his shovel creak as he plunged it into the grass. Torst was paroled last month after serving 16 months in prison on drugs and weapons charges. The two men were breaking ground on the West Ventura Community Garden, a new city project designed to teach gardening skills and build community pride. By the end of the morning at West Park, about 20 volunteers had cleared nine garden plots of 10-by-20 feet.

Ten-by-10-foot plots will be available free of charge to any person or group who signs up, garden coordinator Beth Scott said. She said residents can plant whatever they want and then harvest the fruits of their labors.

Scott said she hoped gang members, seniors, the Assn. of Retarded Citizens and elementary school students would work patches of the garden.

The volunteers Saturday were a mix of activists from the Ventura Avenue neighborhood and residents of a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program for ex-convicts.

“What we want to do is see the image of our neighborhood improve,” said Beth Potts-Mee, huffing and puffing as she stabbed the ground with a shovel she had brought from home.

Potts-Mee said she was also taking the opportunity to train her 6-year-old daughter Jessica in “community involvement” and “earthworm conservation.”

Indeed, Jessica was picking out worms and returning them to the garden patch before carrying away the chunks of sod unloosed by her mother.

Torst, his tattooed biceps bulging as he hacked away at the hard ground, said the work was a way for him and his house mates in the program to pay back society for his crimes. “It’s good for us and good for the community,” he said.

Gardening is a delayed-gratification activity. Scott said gardeners will plant seeds in the spring and harvest the first crops in May.

Saturday, there was just dirt and dug-up grass. Fruits or vegetables were nowhere to be found, until, when the work was winding down, Harrison brought out a seed catalogue and began showing other volunteers a glossy color photo of what was captioned “The World’s Largest Pumpkin.”

“We could grow that here,” he said.