Best Gardening Advice My Dad Ever Gave Me

Last week I promised to tell you the best gardening advice dad ever gave me. It's very simple but most of us have a very hard time with this one and it can make or break your garden. Without farther ado here it is in his own hand writing:

Trust me in Zone 6B this should be the Gardening Gospel! I have seen it snow 5 inches on May 5th!

Solve Your Bug Problems withThese Tips

Squash Borer - Gross! 

Last year the squash borers got my squash and the squash bugs got what the borers left! I found the perfect solution in daddy's notes. He said, "Plant radishes with cukes, melons and squash. Mennonites said this would work for borers and bug problems. I did it and had no bug problems! Radishes & Marigolds work wonders for bug's." I'm for sure going to try this this spring.

Dad always tested the germination rate of his seeds. To be sure the seeds were good he would wet paper towels, place a few seeds (be sure to label what they are) on a towel, fold it over the seeds and place in a baggie. Check them in a few days to see if tiny shoots are coming out. If so, you know your seeds are viable. If no sprouts in a week or so buy new seed. Better than planting a garden with seeds that will not germinate.

About Turnips: Papa said Sept 15 was perfect time to plant them in our zone 6B. No bugs by planting them this late. He had best success by planting in rows rather than beds. First harvest was Oct 15. Need to thin the plants and eat the greens in order to get nice turnips later in season.  Harvested good turnips in December and still had turnips to eat after a hard freeze took out the green tops. Roots stayed good in ground even after hard freeze.

rooting in water

My grandma always started her sweet potatoes in the kitchen a month or so before the first of May. They will form roots in water and all you need to do is cut out the plants (each potato will produce several vines) and plant them in your garden. Be sure to till the soil until it is loose and fluffy. I've grown pretty good potatoes by continuing to pile on straw as the vines grow bigger, All I needed to do to harvest was remove the straw!

sweet potato in water

 

 Next week: The Best Gardening Advice Daddy Ever Gave Me!

Growing Carrots - Tips from Papa's Garden Journal

Papa grew the best carrots ever! We had them from summer till way after Christmas. Below are tips from his journal about how he did it.

Papa always planted Nantes Coreless seeds in the fall. Here's what he said in his journal about growing them: "8-2 Planted 1/2 pack (same as last year) where potatoes were - ground very fertile and loose due to pony poo and straw. 2 rows.
8-9 Carrots coming up, removed straw and mulch
9-27 Some as big (around) as pennies - very good stewed. Lots and lots. Too thick still
1-1 (following year) lots and lots: smaller than usual probably due to them being planted too thick but some very large, most OK. Still have one full row in ground. they are mulched.
1-29 dug 2 large plastic dishes full - the end of the crop.

Another year he wrote this: " Carrots- Nantes - 2 rows where potatoes were. Started eating some end of Sept. When we returned from trip 12/3 (he and mom always went to Gulf Shores for three months every fall) they were monsters! a bumper crop of long, large, smooth ones. I gave carrots to everybody and still had scads for us.
12-21 mulched remaining rows with straw due to cold
March 1 final digging - an aluminum dish pan full after eating them since September, giving them to all our friends. Much too many - cut back to one 40 foot row this year.

Dad always mulched the carrots with straw before the first hard frost. He always planted his carrots after he dug the potatoes and raked the bed smooth. One of his favorite sources for seeds was Henry Fields . I lived on the adjoining property to mom and dad and we raised ponies. That's where he got the pony poo. He would till in the year old manure every spring and his garden soil was very fertile and fluffy too.

I think I will plant carrots this fall in my deep tubs. I don't have a normal garden due to my nasty clay soil and huge, tall oak trees. I use raised beds and plastic containers. See my post about container gardening.

 Next week a mishmash of tips about lots of things from Pop's journal.

If you want to read more about Papa and his antics check out Papa's Journal.

Notes from Papa's Garden Journal - Growing Tomatoes

My dad grew the most awesome veggies. He kept a gardening journal and I inherited it when he died several years ago. I ran across the journal the other day and I had forgotten how many good tips were in there. In the next few weeks, I want to share some of them with you.  

This week we will talk about Tomatoes. Papa, as the grandchildren called him, tried all sorts of Tomatoes and here are some of his notes about his favorite varieties:

 

His all time favorite was Early Girl. Dad planted it every year and as it's name implies, he always got the first tomatoes on this plant. this was also the one he took suckers from for late fall crop.

 

Celebrity- Here's what he said about it, "set 6 plants next to Early Girl on 4-27. Both were from plants started from seed indoors on 3-10. Plenty of fruit on both varieties on 7-6. 7-18 giving away tomatoes to anyone who needs them!"

 

Parks Whopper: (I wonder if this one is still available) He planted it in 2000 and got "bunches" of tomatoes according to his journal.

One way he kept us in fresh tomatoes from early summer to late fall (sometimes as late as Christmas) was by rooting some of the sucker branches from the ones planted in the spring, planting them in the garden in mid-summer and these would produce fruit until frost. The tomatoes that still had green fruit on them when the first hard frost was predicted would be pulled up by the roots and the whole vine hung upside down in the barn. We would pick ripe tomatoes off them until Christmas!

Another way to save those green tomatoes is to wrap each one in newspaper, store them in a box in a dark closet and check them weekly for ripe ones. I’ve done this myself and had fresh tomatoes way into winter.

Next week I'll share his notes on growing carrots. We always had carrots way into January from the seeds he planted the pervious year.