The garden at Calvary United Methodist Church, at the intersection of Trinity Avenue and Elizabeth Street, is not God's little acre by any stretch of the imagination. It is rather a work in progress, a growing ministry in which church members get better acquainted as they dig and weed, and share gardening and landscaping ideas.

Larry Kroutil, community garden coordinator, said this week that harvesting cucumbers has begun and that tomatoes and bell peppers are not far behind.

The first cucumber went into a salad a couple of Saturdays ago at a luncheon for United Methodist Women, but Kroutil gave the fine specimen he pulled from the vine last Sunday to church member Linda Woodall, who planned to make herself a sandwich.

"I felt so honored when Larry brought that cucumber to me from church," Woodall said. "It was about six inches long and slender, the way they ought to be so the seeds are not so big. It was a great-looking cucumber."

Kroutil said the garden is small by design so church gardeners can experiment with conditions for raising vegetables in the "test" beds they have planted. They have put in 10 tomato plants of different varieties, three green bell peppers, a cucumber and three parsley, and seeded marigolds, nasturtiums and two varieties of basil.

"Besides adding some color to the garden, the marigolds and nasturtiums will help repel pests and the flowers of nasturtiums are edible," he said. "We also have some space to plant leeks that a church member has offered to donate."

Breaking ground, breaking the mold

Union Baptist Church, 904 S. Roxboro St., broke ground on Tuesday for the Union Baptist Church Independent School. Speakers were Mayor Bill Bell and Richard Krasno, executive director of the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust.

The church will build an independent K-8 laboratory school for urban youth in North/East Central Durham, one of the city's most socially and economically distressed areas.

The primary goal is to develop a replicable, national model for educating urban children and preparing them for successful lives in the 21st century.

The vision for the school began with the Rev. Kenneth Hammond, pastor of Union Baptist, and it has become a part of the church's effort to revitalize the 96-block neighborhood.

The school will expand on the successful model of the Durham Scholars Program. The late Frank Hawkins Kenan and James H. Johnson Jr., director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center at UNC-Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School, created the Scholars Program in 1995.

Located at Union Baptist, the program helps youths from the six North/East Central neighborhoods prepare for college through after-school, weekend and summer programs led by college honors students.

Under Hammond's leadership, the church's 4,000 members have recommitted themselves to the area and to its economic and social improvement. Union Baptist has been an integral part of the community since its founding in 1897.