Bear’s Garden

The roots of Haran Levy’s garden – the one his grandchildren love to help with – go back to Haran’s childhood in Birmingham, Alabama.

“We lived on three acres with a giant backyard, and we had a gentleman who helped with the yard,” says Haran, a forensic accountant at BDO. “His name was Ben, and he got me involved with a vegetable garden way back when. I was probably 7 or 8. He would come every week, and I would just follow him around and help in between his visits. From then on, I was always doing something with planting.”

Haran carried that passion with him to Houston, explaining that he and his wife Cheryl have had vegetable gardens in every home they’ve lived in. 

Now that Haran and Cheryl’s daughters Emily Spinner and Andi Riesenfeld are married and have their own children, Haran is instilling in the next generation a love for growing things in their garden.

Haran Levy is instilling in the next generation a love for growing things in the garden. Haran plants a flower garden with his daughter Emily Spinner in 1989.

“Haran’s grandpa name is Bear,” Cheryl, a volunteer, says. “It’s Bear’s Garden.”okr

The Levys have four grandchildren: Emily’s girls are Hannah, 8, and Julia, 5; and Andi’s children are Drew, 5, and Lucy, 3. They visit often.

“They always ask to go play in the garden,” Haran says. “When they’re out there, I’m with them. I show them how to water, how to plant. When they see everything grow, they feel that they have helped. It’s a joy.”

Haran says the grandchildren are busy digging, getting wet, and picking vegetables as they come in. Cherry tomatoes and the green shoots from onions are favorites to pick off and snack on right outside. “It’s another reason I share this passion with my grandchildren,” Haran says. “I want to teach them the vegetables come from the earth, not H-E-B.”

Andi says of her dad, “He’s the only one who can convince toddlers to eat raw arugula!” She says her 3-year-old daughter Lucy “eats tomatoes as if they were apples and mint leaves like chips.”

Three decades later, Haran gardens with his grandson Drew Riesenfeld (pictured here in 2022).

Emily remembers her oldest daughter Hannah, now 8, walking into the house when she was 3 with multiple chives hanging out of her mouth. “She was just gnawing on a literal handful of them! Not on the typical toddler palate.”

Haran’s gardening is nothing new to his daughters. “I have so many happy memories of gardening with my dad,” Emily says. “When we first moved into our house in 1989, we had a greenhouse that Dad loved to tinker around in with his plants. Later, he created our backyard garden. There was a special ‘side garden’ that he surrounded with siding to be my special tulip garden. I absolutely loved my tulip garden, and even have memories planting tulips in princess gowns!”

Emily says her dad has a “knack for knowing” what plants need. “Whether it be hibiscus plants, orchids, succulents, bonsai. He even has a plant hospital at his house for when family members’ plants need a little extra TLC.”

Sisters Hannah and Julia Spinner dig for worms in the worm garden.

Today the Levys’ herb garden is prolific with dill, parsley, basil, oregano, rosemary, and mint. “I grow the mint because Cheryl likes tea in the morning, and every morning she has fresh mint in her tea,” Haran says. He also says the children like to walk around the garden with mint leaves in their mouths.

Depending on the time of year, Bear’s Garden will produce several varieties of peppers, from mild to “super-hot,” as Haran describes them. Spring brings peppers, plus several kinds of tomatoes, pole beans, carrots, potatoes, squash, and onions. In June, when the weather turns hot, the tomatoes get cleared out and replaced with okra.

“The okra is fabulous,” Haran says. “Green okra, red okra. It’s much better than what you get at the stores. And it’s interesting, because you have to watch it carefully. It could be three inches long one day, and if you ignore it for a day or two it will be six inches long and tough to the point of being inedible.”

Lucy Riesenfeld loves planting and digging in her grandfather's garden.

For more than 10 years, Haran has grown a list of people – now more than 30, from all parts of his life – who he shares okra with. 

The Levys’ Maltipoo Bailey shares the bounty, too. “He likes raw okra as a treat,” Cheryl says, “and he walks around with it as if it is his cigar.”

There are no chemicals or pesticides in Bear’s Garden: he uses MicroLife Fertilizer and alternate methods to keep pests away. Bird feeders attract purple martins to eat mosquitos. And mylar strips get tied around tomato cages; Cheryl and Haran learned the trick on vacation in Napa, where they asked a restaurant how they grew such beautiful tomatoes. Haran says, “It’s not a hundred percent foolproof, but they blow in the wind, and the sun hits the mylar, and it keeps the birds away.” Squirrels are another story. “You’re never gonna beat them. Even though they have a little brain they persevere.”

Hannah gazes at a ladybug before releasing it into the garden.

Come November, the garden gets a rest and the grandchildren get to dig for worms. “It’s important to me that the kids aren’t afraid of the garden, or of worms. They play with them and get their hands dirty.

“Everything kids do these days is so structured. But in the garden, they just run and play. We have hula hoops and balls, and the watering hose. They enjoy it, I enjoy it. It’s a happy place. It’s my sanctuary.”  

Haran’s grandchildren never got to meet Ben the yardman. “I don’t know how old Ben was when I was following him around. Ben is long gone. But Ben’s watching me from above.”

Cheryl Levy’s Super Easy Roasted Okra

Whole okra
Grape or cherry tomatoes
Olive oil
Sea salt
Freshly ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. On a sheet pan, toss the okra, tomatoes, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Roast for 30 minutes.