You don’t have the First Family’s gardening staff — pace yourself
Christine S. Lucas is a freelance writer, a photographer and a mother. She worked at a garden center in Savannah, Ga., for nearly eight years and noticed that folks were eager to start farming in their backyards, whether or not they had ever grown more than mold in their refrigerator. She hopes to stop the madness and encourage new gardeners to walk before they run:
It was a little over a year ago that I left my position at a family-owned garden center to have my son. Back then, everyone was going to be a farmer, and I can’t help but wonder how many have stuck with it.
People with tar-black thumbs began scrutinizing our Ferry-Morse seed rack, and flats of vegetable transplants flew off our shelves. It was late February when customers began laying out their plans for ambitious organic gardens that would feed whole families. We’re just being thrifty, they told us. The prices in the produce section and lust for a flavorful ‘Better Boy’ drew the most manicured hands into the dirt. It all went fine for a while. Yellow zucchini flowers came and went–the start of a mighty good crop. ‘Ichiban’ eggplant blossoms dazzled bumblebees and preceded fruit which made passersby blush. The talk at the store wasn’t about lawn weeds anymore. Large green rectangles of St. Augustine and Centipede were torn out in favor of expansion. A garden needs room to grow, and what about all of that rain?
It didn’t stop with plants. Sustainability became the new shabby-chic. Rain barrels, compost piles and chicken coops were must-haves. The problem is that it isn’t easy to grow vegetables, especially in the south where heat and humidity conspire against you. Nor is it possible to know your garden from a weekly stroll in it.
Blossom-end rot showed up on just about everything. Fungus blotched gorgeous leaves, and the bugs! Good heavens. Clouds of whitefly coming from gardens needed to be stopped, and that forced people to come to terms with who they were as gardeners. It wasn’t always organic. People felt the sting of losing crops that they’d babied for months. The balked at the price of pesticides and began to look, with nostalgic tenderness, at spotless fruits and vegetables at the Piggly Wiggly. Purse strings loosened and warmth for a property’s insect-dependent ecosystems chilled.
With the gardening season around the corner, you might want to try your hand at a vegetable garden one more time. Don’t make it all or nothing. Rather than planting and tending everything, pick something you love and plant a lot of it. Be the best at growing that one thing. Learn its secrets. Study the pests that would vandalize it, and be better for it.
Fewer plants means the gardener has more time to inspect them carefully. Aphids on the undersides of leaves and buds can be sprayed with benign treatments, like soap, before they get out of hand. At the same time, you can identify the bugs that help you out. Most people are shocked to learn that wasps are a gardener’s best friend. They get in there and prey on nasties. Don’t worry; wasps couldn’t care less about you (just don’t swat them).
Challenge yourself not with watering quantities but with quality watering methods. Most plants prefer to be irrigated thoroughly but less often. A drip system and timer take effort to install, but are well worth the patience. As you become familiar with the various parts included in drip kits, you can use them in other areas of your yard. Rain Bird makes one that is affordable, especially when you consider the price of plants lost in times of drought or inadequate care.
Soil nutrition is another vital area of focus. Soil test kits from stores and those done at county extension offices tell you where to put your money as far as fertilizer and soil amendments are concerned. Many novice gardeners only think about soil when they plant, and that sure ain’t enough. Think of garden soil like shoes. Now imagine those shoes having no soles or laces. You’d be like, what the heck? That’s what plants in poor soil are thinking. To continue this analogy, shoes don’t last forever. You need to buy new ones, or at least polish those that have begun falling apart. Top dress your soil with mushroom compost or cow manure every one to two months–depending on the amount of rain you get.
Ambition is good, but it can cloud judgment. True farmers are paying their dues. Their livelihoods depend on research in addition to trial and error. Take inspiration from them and borrow their determination. Longer days call us outdoors to our plots. Soil temperatures will rise soon. Sewn seeds will sprout. Will you, once more, take up arms to protect them?
