A little gardening advice

There are numerous ways to learn how to garden, and Marge and I've tried many of them. The ones we learn the most from seem to be the absolute failures and the huge successes. We've had both. One failure was growing onions from seed. I got this brilliant idea to plant onion seeds and grow my own transplants. Now transplants are usually about $3 to $4 per 50 to 60 transplants, so I wasn't going to save a ton of money. I just wanted to see if I could.

One source said to plant the onion seed something like 10 weeks before transplanting into our garden. I thought why not plant the seed in November, and then I'd be ready to transplant the little onion plants around March 1. It took a couple weeks for the seeds to germinate and come up, and they were as fine as frog's hair. Tiny. So for the next four or five months I kept a grow light on them, watered them when needed, trimmed their tops as directed, and come April they were about the size of lead in a pencil. I planted some of them and bought what we needed. Never again.

We tried growing pole beans. I read about several kinds off pole beans that said they were stringless. Guaranteed stringless! They weren't. Every bean had a string. It took forever getting the strings off. We tried eating them with the strings on and we'd spit out a wad of strings. Wasn't real happy with the reviews in the garden catalogs. But I read about a pole bean called Fortex, and growers who critiqued the bean said it really was stringless. It was. So we have planted a row of these Fortex pole beans in a tunnel most every year, and we've gotten a mess most every week until frost in the fall. Beans are 10 to 13 inches long with a good taste, so if you have a small garden and want beans all summer plant Fortex. You'll need something for them to climb on.

Probably the biggest surprise of last summer was a tomato called Gold Medal. It was described as a pound-plus tomato with a golden color. Good taste supposedly. It was way better than described! Way better! It was one of the tomatoes that lasted until frost. Really good citrusy kind of taste. Lots of foliage with a good sturdy main stem. Just a fine tomato. Open pollinated so save some seed. The other tomato that surprised me was a Carbon Tomato. We planted it late, and it was outstanding as a late fall tomato. And of course we'll plant a dozen or two Stupice. Love the end of May tomato as well the last tomato in the fall.

We also had a super year growing carrots. We planted two rows of carrots with each row being about 45 feet long. In the past we planted long carrots like we buy in the store, and they didn't do squat. This past year we planted stubby fat carrots, and they were extraordinary. Marge has dug and pulled carrots. Found the best way to cook them is to brush them off and leave the skins on. Then she cuts them in bite-size chunks, sprays them with olive oil or avocado oil and then seasons them with Lawry's garlic salt. Then she bakes them at about 400. Man they are good. Definitely planting them again.

Years ago a friend of mine who used to run the grain mill here in Scott City gave me a seed planter. It came with little disks for seeds like carrots, beets, beans, corn, etc. Marge and I simply put the carrot disk in and run the planter down the rows. I think we thinned them a little but not that much. The secret was the short, stubby carrots in our soil. Red Core Chantenay carrots and Scarlet Nantes carrots.

Any advice for fellow gardeners? Drop me a line if you do. Love to garden, but it's definitely going to have to warm up some before I get real excited.