Gardening for Health, Happiness, and Hózhó

"I have never had so many good ideas day after day as when I worked in the garden." --John Erskine

I agree with Erskine.  I find gardening to be the best meditation medium, and pondering program available.   And with food prices soaring across the nation, and the economy in flux, gardening is also fast becoming a prudent choice this year, for health and financial reasons.

Soil preparation and fertilizing

     Most soil in San Juan County is heavy clay, and needs added peat moss, sphagnum, or compost to loosen it.  Seeds need room to grow, where roots can spread easily.  Old sawdust, pine needles, manure are also good additives to clay soil. Horse manure, however, tends to have undigested weeds seeds and oats still in tact, and may cause a bumper crop of unwanted plants -- especially oats.  Cows on the other hand have four stomachs and do a good job of totally digesting everything.   Don’t use fresh manure as it is very hot and will kill plants.  If your manure pile is old and hard, soak it in water for a great manure tea – for plants. 

Manure Tea:

Put five quarts of manure  on a 3' X 3' square of burlap or other porous cloth that will act as a strainer to separate the solids from the liquid. Tie the four corners of the burlap together to form a bag. Put the bag in a 5-gallon bucket and add three gallons of warm water. Allow it to steep in the warm sunshine for a week. Remove the bag and suspend it above the bucket until it stops dripping. If you’re in a hurry put the hard manure directly in the 5 gal bucket, leave in sunshine for 3 days, and strain when you use it.  You can use the same manure several times.

Heirloom vs. Hybrid seeds

       Many gardeners today are turning to Heirloom varieties rather than hybrid seeds because of their longevity and time tested results.  When heirloom gardeners refer to open-pollination, they mean that a particular plant can be grown from seed and will come back "true to type." In other words, the next generation will look and taste just like its parent.  On the other hand hybrids make no such promise. Heirloom varieties of tomatoes and other vegetables can be harvested and seed saved for the next season, and they will produce true year after year and are open pollinated. So if you’re saving seeds from season to season, Heirloom is the wise choice.

Gardening Guru -- Ada Rigby

      The guru of gardeners in Blanding is Ada Rigby, and her auspicious start began about 1934 when her mother gave Ada her own piece of land to cultivate.  Today she and her husband take care of over 5 acres of garden: including flowers, herbs, vegetables, orchards, and a tree farm.  She has had her own greenhouse for 20 years, and usually starts her own seed, but she also gives a big thumbs up to SNK Greenhouse north of  Blanding.  “They always have excellent plants that are very healthy.”  A few weeks ago they brought in a huge shipment of trees, bushes, and have seedlings of all types. 

        With the belated advent of Spring, Ada, like the rest of us,  is ready to plant and has a wealth of information for new gardeners and old ones alike.  Her top vegetable choices are tomatoes, potatoes, corn and peas, though she has planted practically every vegetable imaginable, and in multiple varieties.  Even though it’s May, Ada says it’s not too late to plant peas.  “Last year I planted them the end of May and picked them most of the summer.”

Tomatoes:

            Ada’s favorite tomato varieties are 4^th of July, which will make fruit by the July holiday, if you “start your seeds early.”  She also likes Reliance, which is resistant to blight, and Romas which make great sauce, as you don’t have to cook them so long.  Of course there are literally dozens of other great varieties for discerning tastes and Brother Rigby prefers Beefsteak.
            

       Ada puts last year’s corn cobs in the bottom of a fairly deep hole when she plants tomato seedlings, and adds a pinch of Borax to get them off to a good start.  You can also pinch off the lower leaves and bury them deep, for a stronger root system. If there should be late frost warnings in May, cover the tomatoes with cans, or other devices.

            Ada recommends removing diseased plants immediately, putting them in a garbage bag, so they don’t spread disease.  “Tomatoes should be almost dried out before each watering,” she stated.  She uses row irrigation, as water sprayed on plants on a hot day can scald them.  At the end of the season she suggests holding back on watering, as that will force the tomatoes to ripen faster.

Potatoes of all colors: 

            The Rigby’s primary potato of choice is the Red Pontiac, but Ada also recommends Yukon Gold, and an early white potato called Kennibeck, and she has even planted Blue potatoes.  One summer for a club meeting she served a Red, White and Blue Potato Salad – now that’s patriotic!  Potatoes can be planted early, and will survive frosts, if they are planted deep -- “making sure the eye is faced upward,” Ada recommends.  It is important to keep potatoes well buried as they turn green and develop toxicity when exposed to the light. Ada still doesn’t have hers planted yet, so it’s not too late to get them in.  Parley Redds True Value has several varieties of seed potatoes.  

            My husband recommends keeping the soil well cultivated and the potatoes hilled up for a good crop.  After harvesting store them in a cool dark place and they will keep ‘til the next season.  We are just finishing up the end of our 2010 crop, and even if they sent out roots, you can trim them off (even planting them,) and still eat the potato. Carrots too, have kept through May, if stored in sand in a cool place.

Corn

        Like the Anasazi of old, Blanding gardeners consider corn a staple.  One of my favorite corn crops was Indian corn that we got from Parley Hurst many years ago.  We grew beautiful long colorful ears from the seed, replicating the ears that had been found in a cave many years ago.  Obviously the Anasazi knew something about hybrid corn!

            Ada’s favorites are Early Golden Bantam, (an heirloom variety), which matures in only 65 day; Iowa Chief; and Bodacious, a fairly new hybrid corn.  There are many genetically engineered sweet corns of all kinds, but again they are hybrids. To keep worms out of ears, Ada recommends putting a drop of vegetable oil in the silk once the ears are pollinated, which must happen first to make kernels.

Cool weather plants and mulch

            Ada’s cool weather garden includes Broccoli—Packman a good variety for this area, radishes, lettuce, beets, and greens.  Raspberries also like cool roots and moisture.  Mulching is one way to keep the temperature down, and moisture in.  We’ve even used newspapers as mulch, but paper tends to decorate neighbor’s yards when wind storms blow through.  Straw, pine needles, old sawdust, and manure all work well

            Next month I’ll pass along more of Ada’s gardening suggestions.  In the mean time, remember what Rudyard Kipling said: “Gardens are not made by singing 'Oh, how beautiful,' and sitting in the shade.”  Get out your gloves, and hoes and your kids and make memories together outside.