A successful community garden does more than give people a place to grow produce. It can also stimulate friendship, beautify the neighborhood, build new skills and encourage self-reliance.

These are just a few of the reasons that Joan Herzog, a resident, wants to establish a community garden in the Ferry Village neighborhood of South Portland.

This week, Herzog was set to hold an organizational meeting for anyone interested in helping to build the new community garden, which she hopes can become a neighborhood meeting place.

She has the support of Claude Morgan, the District 1 city councilor, who is also a resident of Ferry Village.

“Community gardens bring neighborhoods together,” Morgan said Tuesday. “They provide purpose, color and sustenance. They can also provide much-needed nutrition for folks who struggle to put food on their tables.”

He hopes that, like the community garden adjacent to the former Hamlin School, plots in the eventual Ferry Village garden could be set aside to help feed the hungry.

Morgan also said that as the City Council takes inventory of South Portland’s open space this summer, “any proposal to garden communally comes at the right time.”

He believes that an ideal spot for the new community garden would be “a small parcel attached to, or near, the old Mosher School. The parcel is long and narrow and already resembles a garden row and it’s proximal to sources of water.”

While Morgan is supportive of the community garden proposal, he also warned that such gardens “require good planning and sound investment. Laying the foundation is the easy part. The challenge is securing the funding and the infrastructure to ensure good harvests in the future.”

Herzog, who moved to South Portland nearly two years ago, is gung-ho about the community garden project and said it could fulfill an unmet need and also enhance the quality of life in Ferry Village.

She said a community garden could “change the whole look and feel of the neighborhood,” while also helping residents “build good health.”

While establishing community gardens is a part of a worldwide trend, it’s also a prime example of supporting the locavore movement, which focuses on encouraging people to consume food grown locally.

Herzog wants the community garden to be “100 percent organic” and hopes gardeners will also rely on the principles of permaculture, which is based on being sustainable and self-sufficient.

Herzog is now semi-retired, but she was a registered dietician for more than 30 years and also wrote a health and nutrition column for the Portland Press Herald for a number of years.

In addition, she has a background in volunteering for school garden projects, with food cooperatives and various farmers markets. As the daughter of a farmer, she’s also had a lot of experience in growing produce.

Herzog has also always had a garden at any home she’s owned, and said that while initially she wanted “to be Martha Stewart” in recent years her focus has been on growing berries, herbs, tomatoes and edible flowers.

She said a community garden could be anything from planting communal fruit trees, to a green spot to practice yoga, to the more typical raised beds for rent.

Since Herzog first began talking about the possibility of a community garden in Ferry Village, she said there’s been a “groundswell of interest.”

“I’m hoping to take my skills and really foster this garden,” she said from her back porch last week. “When I moved to Ferry Village I was surprised there was no community garden here.”

Herzog said there may be several spots in the neighborhood where the community garden could be placed, but the most important factor would be access to water.

In addition to the community garden, Herzog is in the process of earning a home food-processing license, which would then allow neighbors to use her house for canning or other long-term food storage methods.

She said that people should not be daunted by the work involved in growing produce for consumption.

“Our spirits, our souls really need that connection to nature,” she said. “Just an hour in the garden is a peaceful, mood-enhancing break for me.”

Joan Herzog, who is hoping to start a community garden in the Ferry Village neighborhood of South Portland, shows off her first ripe raspberry of the season.Joan Herzog’s favorite flower is the astilbe, which is why her South Portland garden includes several species of the plant.Staff photo by Kate Irish CollinsJoan Herzog’s backyard garden in South Portland is based on principles of sustainability.Staff photos by Kate Irish CollinsJoan Herzog of South Portland with her rescue dog, Clover.

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