I recently had a conversation with Erin Donahue, co-owner and manager of Umbel Nursery in Parma, Michigan.
I asked her "What advice would you give to somebody who was spooked by the accelerating price of food and was just starting a garden in Michigan?"
"Assume that person is a niece or nephew who is a few years younger than you are. Somebody you really want to see succeed and somebody who accepts advice well."
Erin's advice is highlighted in blue. My comments are not highlighted in blue.
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| "If they give you ruled paper, write the other way" -Juan Ramón Jiménez |
"If you haven't gardened before this year, my first piece piece of advice is to find a spot that gets a lot of sun and you can reach with a hose from the house."
"My second piece of advice is to plant a little bit of everything. Maybe not EVERYTHING, but everything somebody in your family is likely to eat."
Even experienced gardeners will have unexplained failures of plants that are considered bulletproof and unexpected successes of plants that others consider "fussy". It would be a shame to not be growing watermelons if everybody in the house loved them and it was a banner year for them.
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| Heat loving plants like peppers, tomatoes and eggplants will take off more quickly if they are planted on raised berms. The soil in the root-zone warms quickly in berms and promotes drainage. Black plastic mulch also warms the soil. |
"My third piece of advice is for new gardeners to strongly consider landscape fabric or plastic film mulch for at least a portion of your garden. Michigan soil has an incredible seed-bank of weeds that will quickly outgrow your vegetables and you need every break you can get."
The genius in this advice is that we often get trapped into all-or-nothing thinking. We might look at the price of black plastic film or landscape cloth (aka, geotextile fabric) and think..."No way!" But if you only afford to put it around one cherry tomato plant, give it a whirl. You might be stunned at the difference in what you harvest. If you cannot get plastic film, use the cardboard from all of those boxes with the smiles on them or wood-chips.
"My fourth piece of advice is to plant some flowers. Man does not live by bread alone."
It will be discouraging if you look across your yard at your garden and see nothing but weeds. It is energizing to look out and see a few marigolds or zinnias or sunflowers smiling back at you. You might walk out to pick a few flowers for a vase and you might see a ripe tomato or pull a few weeds.
That is all it takes. Go out nearly every day and pick what is ripe and pull a few weeds.
Flowers are said to support populations of predatory insects (wasps, ladybugs, etc.) which benefit the food producing plants.
ReplyDeleteSpecific flower species keep at bay certain pests. Ex: Marigold flowers control Tomato Horn Worm.
ReplyDeleteAlso, plant vegetables in beneficial pairs. Ex: onions with tomatoes.
Do not pair vegetables which combat one another because they have the same nutrient needs.
Regarding plastic, how do we know that the plastic won't be leaching hormone disrupting chemicals (BPA, etc.) into your food supply. For that reason alone, I think a nutural mulch would be the better choice.
ReplyDeleteConversely, with all that's happening, having some plastic sheets to quickly cover your soil after an attack and keep fallout from poisoning your food doesn't sound like such a bad idea.
Raised berms may be a good way to plant in normal years in wet/moist soils. But in normal soils, and particularly in sandy soils, in what will probably be a windy, dry year berms will wreak your crop from lack of moisture. And if you are watering from a well you will really have a problem. As Brutus said natural mulch is a better way to protect the ground from dehydration. ---ken
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this ERJ. The reality is that in our personal situations, there can be a lot we can do. People just need hope and some advice where to start.
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