Bill and Betty Ross no longer live on South Walker Street near downtown Cary, but when they sold their house they kept a plot of land on the corner so they could continue growing their yearly vegetable crop.

It’s changed over the years; now it’s mostly tomatoes, cucumbers, canteloupe, watermelons.

Betty drives from their home on Walnut Street to tend to the garden from time to time; Bill does too, plowing to keep the weeds at bay and the grass from coming up. “I try to keep a clean garden,” Bill Ross said recently while standing near the tomato vines where the fruit was just beginning to ripen.

Betty eats three tomatoes a day — two on a sandwich for lunch and one at night.

Most people who have ever eaten a home-grown tomato know that the grocery store variety just can’t compare when it comes to the taste of the red, juicy, tangy-sweet fruit that’s picked from a backyard garden.

And as food prices continue to soar, concerns about pesticides linger and salmonella scares make people wary of buying produce, folks who grow their own may be benefiting in more ways than one.

“We don’t do it for the money [savings],” Bill Ross said, even though at about $3 for a pack of three “slicing tomatoes” at the grocery store, it would cost Betty about $21 a week to supply her three-a-day habit. “We just enjoy it. It gives me something to do and keeps me halfway out of trouble,” he said.

The couple also sells some of their crop to neighbors. Betty makes pickles from the cucumbers, storing them in jars.

Enjoying the fruits of their labor
On a bit larger scale, Ron and Kay Hodson tend a garden on their 20 acres of land hidden away in rural Apex. They also have several egg-laying chickens. They grow such a variety — green beans, peppers, squash, tomatoes, corn, field peas, broccoli, onions — that they don’t need to buy a lot of store produce.

“I make my own popcorn,” Ron said. “I have to fight the squirrels for it sometimes.”

He likes white popped corn and says he can tell the difference from store bought. “I’ve tried it but it’s not as good as mine,” he said.

Ron, who is retired, was in a small-airplane crash nearly 10 years ago and is disabled. Yet he has found a way to keep tending his garden. He rides from his house the short distance to the quarter-acre garden on a four wheeler. From there he maneuvers himself onto a small rolling seat, pushing through the rows of green beans and corn to check ripeness and do the picking.

He continues gardening year after year because he enjoys the production as much as the fruits of his labor. “If I were totally fit and able, it probably would not be much work at all,” he said. “I absolutely wouldn’t do it if I didn’t enjoy it.”

The fresh summer produce continues to feed the Hodsons right through winter and spring. They can and freeze much of it, using tomatoes for juice and spaghetti sauce or chili, freezing kernels of corn and shelled peas in their deep freezer.

The chickens are another hobby of Ron’s. He’s a member of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy based in Pittsboro and has been taking part in a study. He also enjoys raising Heritage chickens, or Buckeyes, a free-range breed developed in the late 1800s and named after Ohio, the “Buckeye State.”

He is training one of his five dogs to be a “watchdog” for the chickens, which roam in a fenced pasture, and help keep predators such as foxes away.

The result is a a small but daily supply of fresh eggs for the Hodsons.

Raised on garden-fresh
Both couples think the way they were raised had something to do with their love of gardening and appreciation of the homegrown taste through their adult lives.

“Dad always had a garden,” Kay Hodson said. “I was the child that always got out there and helped him. … I enjoy it. My mother used to can or freeze and I learned that from her.

“I couldn’t imagine spring or summer going by without tomato plants at least.”

Ron Hodson was raised on a farm. “We raised probably almost all of our own food” including beef and dairy, he said. “I have a mental picture in my head of the huge garden we had — really, really huge.”

Ron, who has a doctorate from Texas A&M and worked for N.C. State’s Sea Grant program, recalls he and his three brothers working their Ohio farm from the time they were young. When he got into high school one of the coaches asked him to try out for football. “You’ll have to ask my dad,”

Ron replied. “It’s plantin’ season.” (He played.) Ron said he has been gardening ever since he left the farm and set out on his own.

Betty Ross moved to Cary with her parents in 1944. “Back then everybody, just about, had a garden,” she said.

Ross recalls raising her own family on fresh fruits and vegetables. Some years there would be corn and beans, peas, squash or cucumbers. Her oldest son in particular really took to gardening, she said. “We just liked fresh tomatoes and cucumbers,” Betty said. “I think my children have a taste for vegetables more so than junk food.”

The gardeners agree that their taste for homegrown may be partly generational. American urbanization hasn’t allowed people to experience the wonders of gardening on a large scale. Homes are larger and lots are smaller. With two parents working, many families may not have the time to devote to gardening.

“In Cary if you tore up your yard to make a garden, it’s probably against [neighborhood] covenants,” Kay Hodson said.