Macon Magazine

In view of the economy, I restrained myself this year when purchasing vegetable seedlings.

Usually I am enthralled by the nursery’s bounty and return home with many more plants than are practical, envisioning cans of home-grown produce lining my kitchen shelves at the end of summer. (To appreciate the extent of this delusion, please know that I have not the faintest idea how to can vegetables.)

This year, however, I opted for prudence and have planted only two of my three EarthBoxes.

Many gardening systems are out there, and I suspect one works as well as another. I know gardeners who swear by “lasagna gardening,” which involves planting in layers of wet newspapers, peat moss and organic materials. Other backyard agriculturists are sold on Mel Bartholomew’s “square foot gardening,” which involves creating raised beds of a square foot each for both flowers and edible produce.

But seven years ago, someone gave me an EarthBox, a plastic box about 14 by 28 inches with a plastic cover, its own fertilizer that you apply once and precise instructions as to plant placement. It’s a no-brainer system that suits my gardening personality.

I like gardening in a box because it’s easy (just follow the directions); it’s satisfying; it saves space on my tiny deck; it saves me time that would otherwise be spent weeding and fertilizing; and I am convinced that it saves money. At the very least, when I’m planting, watering and harvesting, I’m not out spending money on gasoline, meals and entertainment.

Macon has an extensive veggie-gardening community, with members who garden in a variety of ways and for a number of reasons. Some, like me, appreciate the money saved. Others garden for the sheer pleasure of it. And still others are focused on the environment and the eco-friendly aspects of raising their flowers and vegetables at home.
 
A postage-stamp garden

Bette-Lou and Peter Brown maintain a year-round kitchen garden - postage-stamp size, according to Bette-Lou - behind their College Street home. They garden primarily because they enjoy the whole process.

Not only do the Browns produce seasonal veggies for the table, they also keep an herb garden with cold-weather hardies such as parsley and cilantro and summer herbs starting when spring temperatures rise.

“We’ve always done a garden,” said Bette-Lou, who recently has completed the Master Gardener course offered by the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension service. “To be truthful, I don’t think it saves us much money; it’s strictly a kitchen garden and strictly for the fun of it.”

Each February, the Browns put in lettuce and radishes. When those fade with the beginning of warmer weather, they replace them with tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and eggplants. In June they add okra. “Okra really likes hot weather,” Bette-Lou said.

In fall, the Browns put in kale, turnips, chard and sometimes rocket, which Bette-Lou said “is a great winter crop to grow.”

This year, for the first time, the Browns’ winter garden included Brussels sprouts grown from starts they found locally at Karsten-Denson Co.

Bette-Lou and Peter had seen Brussels sprouts harvested in France, so they knew what to do.

“The sprouts grow along the stalk between the leaves, and you pick the leaves off to let the sprouts form,” Bette-Lou said. “Ours did very nicely.”

When you grow vegetables, it’s helpful to have a lot of recipes for preparing them, and Bette-Lou has inherited quite a crop of those as well. If tomatoes are left over at summer’s end, she makes green tomato mincemeat using a recipe that was her great-grandmother’s and is a family favorite.

“I have a lot of family recipes,” she said, “and I use them and hand them down.”

It’s about the environment

For Heather Cutway, an enthusiastic home gardener, the environment is of paramount importance. She teaches biology at Mercer University and holds a doctoral degree in ecology, so she gardens at home with the health of the planet in mind. She uses no herbicides and applies a pesticide only if fire ants appear. She plants in the ground, in pots and in raised beds.

Heather and her husband, Justin, have lived in their home for four years, and a glance around their yard shows a dedication to all things green. The effect is lovely, with vegetables and flowering plants burgeoning with health, offering a mingling of edible and visual satisfaction.

“I’m naturally concerned about the environment,” Heather said, “so my gardening has to be good for me, good for my yard, and good for the environment.”

The small yard holds a huge variety of plantings, and in front of the house are attractive beds of edibles not usually seen at street side.

“That’s because this is where we get the most sun,” Heather said, indicating herb beds that parallel the sidewalk and hold a bevy of summer herbs. Young fig trees already have yielded a few figs; an apple tree is surrounded by lettuce.

Twin rows of pretty strawberry plants, laden with fruit, border the front walk. Almost-invisible netting protects the berries from hungry birds. An urn on the front steps is lush with fragrant mint. Native cinnamon ferns grow in pots beside the front door.

Two of the three rain barrels that collect rainwater for irrigation stand in the side yard beside the front porch. Along the foundation of the house are blossoming raspberries and a small hedge of asparagus.

In the back yard, Heather has built wooden frames for four raised beds containing tomatoes, green beans, kale, peppers and lettuce. Snow peas she planted a month to six weeks ago are twining and blossoming on a trellis. When the snow peas are done, they’ll be replaced by cucumbers.

“The raised beds make it easy to control weeds and the soil,” Heather said, and also pointed out an oakleaf hydrangea and potted lime and lemon trees.

“I’ve had some limes but not very many lemons,” she says.

Muscadine grapes grow on a fence, a shade garden is bosky with Virginia creeper, native Christmas fern, native azaleas and heuchera. The red buckeye and sweetshrub also are natives, as is the oakleaf hydrangea.

“I like to grow native plants, and I also provide some habitat,” Heather said, pointing to a bat box attached to the house. “You should welcome bats; they eat tons of mosquitoes.”

She also keeps a box for mason bees, which are smaller than honeybees and excellent pollinators for a garden.

And in a pen at the back of the garden are two handsome chickens, one a Rhode Island Red, the other a Spotted Sussex. The hens are free to roam the gardens once a day, during which “they peck the plants, dig in the mulch, and catch bugs,” Heather said. The hens also provide eggs for the Cutways’ table and litter to fertilize the gardens. It doesn’t get much more sustainable than that.