Just off of Mississippi 13 North rests a unique and bountiful garden, one that literally grows out of an in-ground pool.
Tommie Beal and his wife, Bobbie, had trouble keeping their pool clean so they decided to fill it in last year with gravel then top soil to create a new garden. The garden has vegetables such as butter beans, peas and tomatoes and flowers, including sunflowers, old maids and marigolds.
Every afternoon Tommie Beal, who is soon to turn 86, heads out to his garden to work on it, and he said it has many health benefits.
“It relaxes me, gives me something to do and gets me out of the house. Inside the house isn’t a place for a man to stay healthy,” he said. “I’m active.”
Beal added that gardening is the “best medicine you can get.”
“Late in the afternoon when you get out, hoe and dig in it, it’s peaceful. I love it. You have to really like gardening, though, to have a good garden,” he said. “The main thing is I pray over my garden. I believe in that and they turn out good, always have.”
Besides the garden, Beal grows a variety of fruits and vegetables, including satsumas, oranges, bananas, plums, squash, cucumbers and more. He said one of the keys to a good garden is using the right fertilizer. He uses cow manure and rainbow fertilizer.
Gardening is nothing new for Beal, who also has a fenced-in garden at his camp in White Bluff. He’s been gardening since he was a child and enjoys it just as much today as he did then.
