2020 Youth Garden

Jack Deatherage

(1/2020) Planning a garden this early in a new year is generally an exercise in fantasy. I don't know that I've ever built a garden in my head that wasn't exactly what I wanted it to be. Somehow, mostly due to my lack of energy, knowledge, perseverance, cash, weather and insects, the real gardens tend toward chaos and seldom resemble any type of garden at all. Which, I suppose is why I generally have enough success each year to give me hope for the next. It also helps to think of failures as learning experiences. And the gods know I have had lots of those!

Mom's brother Allen, Uncle Gus as I knew him, began leaving sod walkways between his planted garden rows after reading about the method in the 1980s. I eventually applied the method at Marty's farm after sinking in mud while retrieving a watermelon in August when the rains finally came. While sod walkways reduced the weeding to just the tilled rows I still had to keep after the abundant weeds in those rows! That often meant weeding by hand- never a pleasant task for one standing six feet six inches tall!

A few years ago I stumbled upon an article about growing vegetables in straw bales. I shrugged it off as a curiosity and continued hurting myself by loosening packed soil with a broadfork and being jerked around by a rototiller. Eventually, creaking into my sixties caused me to seek out books on straw bale gardening. A 10 bale garden became a 20 bale garden, became a 42 bale garden as each year taught me new ways of using the bales.

Lessons learned in the 2019 season have me convinced the 2020 garden will be better. I have to say that to remain optimistic after each growing season presents challenges I wasn't prepared to deal with.

Previous straw bale gardens gave me an abundance of slugs that ruined the tomatoes before the brown marmorated stinkbugs could do the job. I also learned a wet summer causes the straw bales to rot down so quickly as to actually pull some of the staked tomato's roots out of the straw! Another garden saw the best tomato plants I've ever grown annihilated by a single groundhog. The ravaging muncher also took out some of the lushest pole bean vines I've managed in decades!

The 2019 garden went through a worse drought than the previous bale gardens had endured, made more difficult because we had to haul water to the garden in 5-gallon buckets. Watering by hand turned up an unexpected additional problem- the dried potting soil I'd covered the tops of the bales with rejected the water! Watching gallons of water run off into the sod was frustrating. It didn't take us long to figure out that quick, light watering dampened the soil and a second pass allowed for a slower, deeper watering. It also meant we were spending more time holding 3 and 5-gallon watering cans at odd, very uncomfortable angles.

We also had to deal with a den of 5 groundhogs and the eventual arrival of the Asian stink bugs just as the late season tomatoes were ripening. The groundhogs were convinced to relocate, though the mother came back in time to help herself to some tomatoes. Still, we'd gathered the majority of the fruits for the best sauces I've made since Dad gardened and Mom canned throughout the 1970s!

Three different species of caterpillar also made appearances last year. A Common Buckeye that decimated the single snapdragon we had sprout. Nearly a dozen Eastern Black Swallowtails wiped out a dill and an Italian parsley, but the world can always use another butterfly. The third species of caterpillar was the tomato hornworm. Generally not a creature I care to find on my tomato and pepper plants, these "worms" were discovered already covered by parasitic wasp cocoons! We left them to their fate.

The coming season has me thinking we'll need more buckets to grow herbs in and we'll double the garden size by laying out 40 more bales. The plan from there is to focus on growing tomatoes in the new bales. Tomatoes- in spite of weather, drought, slugs and groundhogs, have done very well in each of the bale gardens we've trialed.

Last year's bales will likely rot down a bit during the winter and will be planted with various cultivars of butterhead lettuce. As they will only need a dusting of all-purpose fertilizer before a sowing of cool weather crops I'm anxious to plant an early garden for a change. I may trial some early cole crops among the lettuces. Warming weather will see the rotted bales planted with as many flowers as I can sprout at home and transplant as weather allows. I'm thinking zinnias and snapdragons!

For the new bales, I'm going to trial Russian and Siberian early maturing varieties of tomatoes after hearing the Mad One rave about finding them in a Moscow open market a few years ago. I'm hoping they'll ripen here before the Asian invaders arrive in quantity! I'll also plant the German Pink tomato that produced beyond expectation last year in spite of the drought, infrequent watering, groundhog and stink bug attacks. Those are among the reasons that tomato is an heirloom! Still, I'm going to trial a deterrent spray of garlic and hot pepper for the groundhog and the stink bugs in 2020.

A biodynamic farmer friend- Ed of PA, follows the weather from a commodity market perspective and has warned me of a likely early, dry spring. Followed by a summer drought, that is predicted to turn to heavy rains at exactly the wrong time! To save money and effort, I'm not going to cover the bale tops with potting soil. Instead, I'll make a hole for a handful of potting soil and either direct seed (lettuce), or transplant tomatoes. I'm planning to only water the bales where plants are growing and hope what runs off the patches of potting soil will soak into the bare straws and act as a water reserve for the deep growing roots. I'm thinking this should get the garden through the worst of the dry spell.

I know at least ten people stopped by the garden behind the Quality Tire building on Creamery Road last year. Some were in awe of the gardening technique. Some laughed. Some said "feed me". Some offered money to expand the garden. We took no money, fed a person or two, laughed along with some and marveled at other's excitement. The goal now is to produce enough lettuce, tomatoes and herbs to satisfy ourselves and a few others. And we're ready to talk to would-be gardeners about joining the adventure.

The cool thing about new gardeners working with straw bales, is the lack of weeds. The focus is generally on learning to tease the best plants possible from the straw. To that end, interested families can contact us via Facebook at "Emmitsburg Youth Garden". Or stop by the garden and check it out, though it currently doesn't look like much, but neither does a plot of bare dirt.