The Root Doctor

How a Pinehurst endodontist created a produce paradise

By Jan Leitschuh

As a successful health professional, he deliberately chose to live here, in the heart of one of the nation’s foremost golf-mad regions. He and his wife found a graceful, red-brick house off the traffic circle, one that backs right up to the National Golf Club.

But while “keep your head down” might be common advice in the Pinehurst ‘hood, Dr. Jim Corcoran is looking down at green beans and garlic, not golf balls. When he speaks of cabbage, it ain’t deep rough. His garden spot has nothing to do with a tee shot. This Pinehurst endodontist does not golf for leisure. He grows vegetables. Passionately. Wholeheartedly. Pulling roots or performing root canals, here is a man who enjoys working with his hands.

Step through the tall pines, past a child’s dream of twin tree houses, the playground for his brood of three. Open a trim gate to a garden where luxurious foliage overruns neatly-aligned, raised beds. Vines crawl up a side fence line, blueberries hedge the back, and hanging gutters of strawberries fill up the vertical space. A resident Eastern box turtle patrols, eating bad bugs and discarded strawberries. “This is a working turtle,” Corcoran says proudly. Calmness descends, quietude sings. The effect is peaceful — and productive.

Welcome to the green retreat of a busy professional. Not a golf ball in sight. The garden is a restorative, neatly fenced, 30-foot by 40-foot horticultural meditation on the nature and cycles of life.

“It’s as much therapy for me as it is for the vegetables,” he admits. He’s a fan of Dawn Patrol: “I’ll get up early on a weekend and come out here with a cup of coffee and putter. When the kids wake up, they know to come out here and find me.”

It’s also a peaceful space for cultivating privacy and marriage. As a member of Pinehurst Endodontics, “I work just on the other side of the traffic circle,” says Corcoran. “I’ll come home for lunch, and Amy (his wife) and I bring our meal out here, sit down in the shade, and talk.”

Not that the produce itself isn’t also welcome. In season, says Corcoran, “I love to steal my wife’s salad bowl every night and come out here, and fill it up with blueberries. I leave it on the kitchen counter, and the kids grab a handful for snacks until it’s gone. And then I fill it up again.”

Tomatoes climb skyward, and potatoes, cucumbers, squash and pumpkins spill over the sides of this modern-day Victory Garden. Herbs grow neatly in pots at the back, along with a few creative bonsai. The soft greenness disguises the hard work and daily discipline within.

“I’m still very much a novice at this,” he says modestly, amidst the verdant abundance that is his backyard garden. But despite his protests to the contrary, he’s evidently no duffer. “I’ve had good teachers,” he insists. “My neighbor. Joe, and dental patients that are gardeners — I’ll pick their brains.”

“More than anything,” he says, “having a neighbor like Joe made the difference, encouraging us to come out here and do this.”

That would be Joe Sullivan, the garden mentor next door, Corcoran’s horticultural Bagger Vance helping him find his “authentic swing” in the garden.

Sullivan’s elegant, diverse and well-planted backyard adjoins the Corcorans’. “He’s like the Irish version of Clint Eastwood, “ says Corcoran with a chuckle. “He’s super-cool.”

It all started when Corcoran was helping Sullivan clear out a tree that blew down in a hurricane near the back of their joint property line. Looking at the newly available sunlight, Sullivan said, “You should have a garden here. Do you want to get a garden together?”

So Corcoran pulled the pine straw away and turned over the sand beneath, planting peppers and tomatoes into his new little bunker.

How did that work out? “Best weeds I ever grew,” he says with a grin. “Maybe I got one small tomato.” It was, in his view, an unplayable lie. “I decided to work with Nature.”

A handy sort, Corcoran installed some raised beds in 2012. Pressure-treated 2×10 inch pine, stained brown, made attractive beds 20 inches high. He determined the spacing between boxes by trundling a wheelbarrow through his staked-out beds. Aisles were filled with pine straw mulch to squelch weeds.

Now, seven boxes worth, his raised beds range from a small 6×8-foot bed to a longer 6×22 feet. “Six feet is about the length of my reach, so that became the bed width,” he says with a laugh. Simple, practical planning, grounded in reality, became a theme.

Quality soils were brought in by a family pickup truck — he estimates 15 trips — that he and son Robert unloaded into the beds. Hard work and discipline. Forget golf — who needs a gym when you have a garden?

“The garden is great for the kids too,” he says of his three children. “They see the hard work and then the results.”

That hard work sometimes entails delayed gratification. Three years ago, the family went to the beach. The garden was peaking, lush with almost-ripe harvests. Upon his return, Corcoran immediately went straight to the garden. When he didn’t come back inside, Amy came looking. Jim was standing among green nubs. “The deer had mowed it all down. They had eaten absolutely everything. Amy got worried because I was gone so long.”

After some experiments with rabbit fencing, last year Corcoran took a mulligan and put up a 7-foot deer fence and installed gates. The deer are at bay at last.

Corcoran’s strawberries — plants donated by neighbor Sullivan — grow in rain gutters from Lowe’s Home Improvement. No slouch with a drill, the endodontist-gardener drilled holes in the bottom for drainage, then lined the gutters with landscape fabric, and filled them with quality soil. “Irrigation is the key there,” he said of the shallow containers hanging vertically, and so installed a simple system to deliver water. The raised beds were also irrigated.

This spring, neighbor Sullivan issued the challenge to young Robert: “Let’s have a pumpkin-growing contest.” Generously, Joe shared some seedlings of plants that he said would grow to 300 pounds. But the Corcorans have a twist — they also found a packet of prize-winning  pumpkin seed stock from Weeks Seed Company, some of which have grown up to 1300 pounds.

“That’s our secret weapon,” says Corcoran, chuckling.

“And Miracle Grow,” adds Robert.

“And Miracle Grow,” agrees his dad. “Lots and lots of Miracle Grow.” They plan to switch to potassium as the flowers set and start making pumpkins, then trim down to one pumpkin per vine, the best one, so the vine can pour all of its nourishment into what they are sure will be their prizewinner.

Corcoran is no stranger to hard work and discipline.

He was in combat operations in Operation Desert Storm at age 19, then stationed at Fort Bragg for a year, exposing him to the glories and beauty of the Sandhills. Following a three-year stint as an airborne ranger, stationed at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia, he went to college on the GI Bill, completing undergraduate studies in three years at the same time he was working construction 30 hours per week.

“Part-time construction worker, full-time student,” he jokes.
Dental school was on an Army scholarship. From ‘97-’01, he attended University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Dentistry where he met his wife, Amy. They moved to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, on active duty for his residency. A second residency to study the specialty of endodontics followed in 2003 at Fort Bragg. 

“That’s where my wife and I really fell in love with the Sandhills,” he says. Later, he taught endodontic dentistry to general dentistry residents at Fort Campbell for another three years.

“I got out and came running back here,” he says. In June of 2008, he joined Pinehurst Endodontics. He loved the small but vibrant towns in the area: “It’s such a fantastic place. A small town, family, friends, great schools, the talent here, and quality of medical care. And I don’t even play golf!” 

He is, however, an avid runner. During a marathon in Myrtle Beach  at roughly the 18-mile mark, a man ahead of  him fell. As Corcoran approached, it was clear the man was having a heart attack. Corcoran began CPR, an exercise he performed for a full 11 minutes until the ambulance arrived.

“I broke his ribs with the CPR,” he says, ruefully. But the man, a veterinarian from Knoxville, Tennessee, survived his coronary blockage and eventually connected with his Good Samaritan for an emotional phone call.

Garden drama happens on a much quieter scale. Plants flower, fruit and bear. They are pulled and laid down to compost. It’s his happy place.

“Gardening is a lot like dentistry,” he says, “finding the right therapeutic dose to get the results you want. Everything worthwhile in life requires effort. It’s a wonderful thing for my children to experience, to see the hard work and then results.” The freshest produce around.

Retreat, role modeling, and fresh veggies. Such, he feels, is his horticultural equivalent of a double eagle.

Jan Leitschuh is a local gardener, avid eater of fresh produce and co-founder of the Sandhills Farm to Table Cooperative.

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