No dirt? No sun? No problem!

The odds were stacked against the Congregational Church of Batavia.

It is, after all, a little difficult to have a garden without dirt. Or sun. Or gardeners.

But Diane Felt and Karen Savage wanted to Plant a Row for the Hungry. They wanted a bountiful harvest. "We thought we should do something to get families connected," Felt said.

What they've grown, with a lot of creativity and steely perseverance, is one of the most effective, and downright fun, Plant a Row campaigns in the area.

Older children take preschoolers out to the garden to teach them about fruitful labor - and helping the less fortunate.

Sunday school students use markers to draw suns, flowers and some unidentifiable - but still attractive - veggies on lunch sacks to cart the harvest to the Batavia food pantry. The packages all arrive with the message: "Grown by Love by the Congregational Church of Batavia."

And when the program was kicked off in early spring, all the children in church were called up front to plant a few vegetable seeds in a big portable garden container.

"It was the excitement of teaching these little people, 'Hey, I got something from my own hands,'" Felt said.

Children kept track of which seeds they planted and enthusiastically monitored the growing little plants.

Looking at the thriving program today, it's hard to imagine it's tenuous start.

The church in downtown Batavia literally had no room to grow.

The only workable green space on its small, landlocked property was dedicated to the newly built children's playground. But even that area didn't get much sun, congregation member Leslie LeResche, a master gardener, pointed out.

Container gardening was an option, but buying planters large enough for a garden was too costly. The solution: seven big Rubbermaid containers lined up against an outside church wall - near the front door - where there's plenty of sun, heat and foot traffic.

LeResche helped the group get started. They drilled holes in the bottom of the containers then set them up on bricks so the water could drain properly. They put several inches of packing peanuts in the bottom so plant roots wouldn't rot in any standing water.

The volunteers filled the containers with lightweight potting soil, then planted vegetables donated by the Windy Acres garden center in Geneva: cucumbers, onions, Roma tomatoes, green beans, carrots, radishes, beets, Jalapeno and bell peppers.

The vegetable-plot-on-bricks has quite a few adoring fans.

Sixteen families volunteered to adopt the "garden" for one week during the spring-to-fall campaign.

They're responsible for whatever the plants need that week: pruning, fertilizing, watering and harvesting.

Each family passes along a traveling journal to record their progress - and create a template for another garden next year. Volunteers record thoughts, weather conditions, harvests and, in at least one case, poetry.

No matter what the situation, Felt and her crew find a way to inject something into Plant a Row.

More than 100 children spent several weeks in summer vacation school, so the gardening crew taught the fourth-, fifth-and sixth-graders how to "bring the little ones out and explain it all to them." They never miss an opportunity.

And that's the most exciting element of their participation in the program. They prove that it's easy to help out as long as the desire to do so exists.

Though Plant a Row for the Hungry is a national campaign, sponsored by the Garden Writer's Association of America, its premise is home grown. Gardeners can help neighbors in need by donating surplus produce from their gardens to food pantries and soup kitchens, or they can plant a little extra and dedicate those fruits and vegetables to the same cause.

The crew at the Congregational Church of Batavia proves it's not necessary to have a big, tilled garden to Plant a Row for the Hungry.

"There was no place to do it," LeResche said, "and that didn't stop them."