They call her “The Collard Green Lady.” So it’s not hard to think of what her passion might be.

Collard plants small and large dot the landscape of Eddie Mae Ervin’s fertile backyard at her Lake Kennedy home. She used to grow more of them, but has been sick this year, so she scaled back to only 30 or so plants, both in pots and in the ground.

“I give the elderly collards,” she said, dismissing the fact she is 85 years old herself. “I always have more than I need.”

Ervin is in her yard every day to tend the plants. It’s been that way since she was young, she said.

“I was raised up in the garden,” she said. “I’d rather be outside than in the house. Momma had to whip me to make me come inside.”

These days, Ervin not only has two sons and three daughters but also more grandchildren and great-grandchildren than she can count. Some of them help her in the garden, but the collard plants are her babies.

“I like being outside and doing the work,” she said as she limped around her backyard on a walker recently. “My leg and things are hurting me, but I don’t give up.”