Ready to join the growing numbers of wannabe food raising home farmers? After all if Michelle Obama can do it, why can’t you? This is her very first veggie garden too. And get this – it is all-organic, just like that Governor General Adrienne Clarkson established in 2001 at Rideau Hall, her Ottawa digs on Sussex Drive. It cost $2,483 and the assistance of the National Capital Commission.
At 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the First Lady had 23 school kids to help get her garden started. And despite claims her husband would be out there weeding with the rest of the family, we’ve yet to see him out on bent patella pulling patiently midst the peppers. Guess the optics just aren’t right.
The average gardener spends five hours a week tending their charges. Doubtlessly Michelle will insist her husband joins her in doing the same, television cameras at hand or no. You will, too, be watering, weeding, fertilizing, staking, tying, reseeding and picking the bugs off (you’re going organic – remember?). You might even want to follow Prince Charles’ example and talk to your plants (the neighbours are bound to understand).
Those well-known gardeners seem to have come by adequate support materials. You will need to invest in a spade, fork, rake, hoe and trowel. Then come the seeds and/or starter plants, fertilizer, composted manure, mulch, sturdy stakes, irrigation equipment . . .
Now for the good news: Do all this and you may, if you are lucky, the weather gods smile and your sore knees and aching back have not confined you to the house, actually beat the raccoons to the harvest. Bon chance!
Well, yes it could be like that. Some of it certainly will. All those prattling columnists, boob-tube hosts and politicians seeking to show how with-it they are with their recession gardens fail to reveal one vital item: The only real way to discover what it is all about is by doing it.
Still, a few tips follow to join what P. G. Wodehouse so aptly described as sons of toil covered by tons of soil. Oh yes: John Adams, the first president to live in the White House, had a kitchen garden to feed his family.
Vegetables
- Tomatoes and cucumbers grow better, produce more fruit which is kept clear of slugs, when grown up sturdy stakes
- Grow ‘Tiny Tim’ and other cherry tomatoes in hanging baskets to keep clear of the ground and produce evenly ripened fruit. ‘Pot Luck’ cucumbers can also be grown in that manner.
- Add crushed eggshells when planting tomatoes to provide the extra calcium they must have if they are to avoid blossom end rot later
- Add radish seed to the packages of carrot or parsnip seed before sowing – radish germinate very quickly and mark where the rows are as well as breaking the surface soil for the more delicate carrot or parsnip foliage
- Plant tomatoes out when lilacs are in bloom
- Peppers do better watered when in bloom with 2 tablespoons of Epsom salts to a gallon of water
- Tomatoes crop better if 2 teaspoons of Epsom salts are applied to each plant when first fruit are the size of dried peas; water in carefully without splashing the foliage
- Many vegetable seeds can be planted as soon as the soil is warm, well before the last frost date; these include green onions, radish, brassicas, turnips, peas, spinach, lettuce, broad beans
- Do not plant out tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, okra or yard-long beans until the night temperature has reached at least 55ºF
- Cucumbers and their relatives can be seeded in the Toronto area the first week of May, or planted out Victoria Day weekend
- Prop cantaloupe, other melons and squash up on bricks or old patio slabs to prevent rotting, speed ripening and discourage slugs and snails
Herbs
- Control mint and other vigorous plants by placing in a pot which has the bottom removed and buried in the ground so that the top inch protrudes
- Grow the herbs you use most in 6- to 10-inch pots on the patio or deck in full sun, handy to the kitchen when they are required; in fall they can be brought inside
- Tarragon and the best mints do not grow true from seed
- Good oregano is rarely grown from seed – the strains are rare; best from seed is Greek oregano and is the only one hardy in southern Ontario; there are several strains of other oregano grown from cuttings
- Soak parsley and chervil seed between damp paper towels overnight before speeding to speed germination
- Mix radish seed with parsley and chervil seed before sowing to mark the rows and break the surface of the soil
- Few herbs will grow well in shade; chervil is unusual in that it has to, but mint, lemon balm and lovage will also grow there
- Pick herbs for best flavour early in the day when their essential oils are at the peak
Fruit & Nuts
- Chinese chestnut is hardy in southern Ontario, produces heavy crops from fourth year
- Fruit trees and bushes require annual pruning if they are to bear satisfactorily
- For smaller gardens, consider doubling fruit tree to provide shade also – the blooms are pretty and frequently scented was well; peaches, nectarines, apricots and sour cherries are self-fruitful and do not require a second tree for pollination
- Apples, pears, sweet cherries and plums should have a second tree of a different variety planted close by to achieve proper pollination, although crab apples will pollinate other apples trees
- Grow grass under fruit trees to reduce the amount of nitrate nutrients available in late summer as the fruit is maturing or they may not ripen properly.
