MASON — Every night, Pam Kray, her husband, Nick, and 5-year-old son, Christopher, head out to the farm to tend to their crops.

The Mason family doesn’t own the land, the city does, providing them and more than four dozen other residents with a plot of land along Ohio 741 large enough to do their own organic gardening.

“It’s awesome,” she said. “It’s kind of out in the country, so you really feel like you’re farming.”

Flourishing for the first-time gardeners are everything from tomatoes, corn, squash and onions to watermelon, herbs, peppers and celery. Christopher monitors the development of each crop in wide-eyed wonder.

“He’s like ‘Wow! That was just a little plant and now there’s tomatoes and peppers,’” Kray said. “I think it’s amazing for children to see how things actually go, so it’s a learning experience for all of us.”

The idea for a community garden is the work of Norm Roemer, who approached Mason City Council with the idea last year. Initial planting of the garden occurred on May 15.

The members of the community garden consists of “a fair number” of first-time gardeners and green thumbs, most of them planting tomatoes, green beans, runner-type squashes and other crops that need a lot of land.

“We’ve got a good mix,” Roemer said. “A lot of them wanted the experience and quite a few of them have HOAs (homeowner’s associations), which block you from having gardens in your yard,” Roemer said. “This is a real good opportunity to see if you liked gardening without tearing up your backyard.”

Besides offering an opportunity to grow produce on one’s own at a fraction of the price paid at area grocery stores, the community garden also offers an outlet for sharing ideas and tips.

“The biggest thing about it is that it’s a community thing,” Kray said. “We ask each other ‘What are your growing?’ ‘How did you do this?’ ‘How did you do that?’ You get to talk to people and learn more about vegetables and gardening.”

The Krays were planning to join neighbor Jack Tager in a backyard gardening co-op when Tager told them about the city’s new community garden.

The family enjoys taking time to tend to their garden and think others would do the same if they realized how easy it could be.

“So many people want to know how to do it, but they just don’t have the knowledge,” Pam Kray said.

Fifty area families are using what knowledge they have to grow produce on 54 plots, including Mark Flannery, who last grew a garden more than a decade ago. But now the long-time Mason resident and his wife Lisa stop by the community garden every other night to tend to cherry tomatoes, eggplants, green peppers and squash.

“This is great,” Flannery said of the garden. “We were wanting to do it in the back yard and this is the best of both worlds.”

The city not only tilled the soil, it also demarcated individual spots with mulch and parked an outdated and unused water truck nearby for residents to use when irrigating their crops.

Right at the edge of their neighborhood, the plot of land is “super convenient” and allows people to plant to their heart’s desire without altering their own property, Flannery said.

“You don’t have to tear up your back yard and try to find a spot,” he said. “It’s good farmer’s soil up there, too.”

Flannery hopes to grow enough to give surplus vegetables away to not only family and friends, but to people in need.

That’s what Linda Roemer and her husband were hoping for when they organized the garden and planted a separate crop of sweet potatoes, beans and tomatoes to benefit the Mason Food Pantry.

Roemer credits councilman David Nichols for shepherding the project through city council and public works supervisor David Riggs and his staff for facilitating matters once the project was approved.

“We’re most appreciative of them and next year, hopefully, we’re going to be better,” Roemer said.

The current demographics of those using the Mason Community Garden include young and old, single and married people and families of all backgrounds.

“This has been a nice opportunity to get to know new people and reach out to each other and help one another,” she said. “That’s been the whole goal from the beginning. It’s just been a very, very nice community-oriented activity.”

Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4541 or eschwartzberg@coxohio.com. Follow at twitter.com/eschwartzberg.