A Green Thumb

Alene Hamilon, of Alene's Garden, looks at her pepper plants and other plants at her home on Monday, March 12, 2018, in Gordonville.

Kassi Jackson ~ Southeast Missourian

Alene Hamilton shares her love for plants at her “U-Pick” garden

When Alene Hamilton first bought her house outside of Gordonville in Cape Girardeau county in 2011, the only thing in her yard was a five-foot high chain link fence encircling the area.

For a gardener, this simply wouldn’t do.

She began creating. Hamilton tore the fence out in 2012 and transformed the space into a place for vegetable and blueberry patches. She added strawberry, blackberry and herb patches, complete with a heated 30 x 48 foot greenhouse and two high tunnels, to grow raspberries and early garden vegetables such as onions, tomatoes and beans. She built an underground timed watering system, and an above-ground irrigation system.

Hamilton also attended blueberry school in Springfield, Missouri, to learn about growing the fruit. The day-long class followed by a day of touring blueberry farms helped equip her with the knowledge to grow blueberries.

Two years later, she planted both blueberries and strawberries, and opened her “U-Pick” berry business.

After much thought, Hamilton decided to call her berry, flower and vegetable patches “Alene’s Garden.”

Hamilton’s Roots

Hamilton grew up on a farm in Southeastern Kansas, where her father raised beef cattle and grew wheat, milo, corn and soybeans. During her high school years, it was Hamilton’s job to gather and wash the eggs from her family’s 2,000 chickens.

“I’ve always lived in a rural area,” Hamilton says. “I like the country, I like my space. It’s quieter.”

She attributes her green thumb to her grandma and parents.

Alene Hamilton, of Alene's Garden, transplants milkweed in her greenhouse at her Gordonville home on Monday, March 12, 2018.

KASSI JACKSON ~ kjackson@semissourian.com

“My grandmother had a garden. She loved to really grow stuff,” Hamilton says. “My mom had geraniums on an old metal table, and she had houseplants and stuff, too. Dad had a greenhouse.” Hamilton still uses the tool for potting that her father made and used.

After college, Hamilton moved to Pittsburgh for a year while her husband David completed his education. For more than four decades after, she and her husband moved for David’s job to Centralia, Missouri, Hastings, Michigan, and Rolla, Missouri. Hamilton moved to Southeast Missouri in 2011 after her husband passed away, in order to be near her daughter and grandchildren.

“I always wanted a greenhouse,” Hamilton says. “I had one in Michigan that we had attached to the back basement, then we moved and we had one in Rolla. When I came here, I finally got a big one.”

U-Pick

Alene Hamilton, of Alene's Garden, poses for a portrait with her business sign out front of her Gordonville home on Monday, March 12, 2018.

KASSI JACKSON ~ kjackson@semissourian.com

Hamilton grows a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and flowers at her garden. She starts her plants from seeds, on a table in her basement that she built, with lights that move up and down to control the amount of light the plants receive. From here, once they are big enough, the plants move into her greenhouse where customers may buy them.

In addition to the non-fruit plants, Hamilton has a patch of strawberries, blackberries and raspberries that people can pick for themselves, as well as 533 blueberry plants that she procured from Michigan, where her son lives.

Hamilton’s strawberries are ready for picking mid-April and blueberries are ripe around June 1. Blackberries can be harvested mid-July, followed by raspberries.

Tasting the produce is an important aspect of the Alene’s Garden experience. When customers come to pick blueberries, Hamilton lets them taste the difference between the two varieties that she grows, so they can decide which kind they want to pick.

“It’s a family experience,” Hamilton says of her greenhouse and garden. “When the little kids come, or the big kids, even the older people, I take them to the patch and I give them each a strawberry to taste —Mine are nothing like what you buy in a store.”

Hamilton also grows asparagus, peppers, cabbage, kale, herbs, rhubarb and flowers, which visitors can purchase from her gardens and greenhouse.

“I just like gardening”

Besides owning and operating her own greenhouse, Hamilton has an impressive resume: she is the president of the Cape Girardeau County Master Gardeners and the Blueberry Council of Missouri, as well as the secretary of the SEMO Iris Society. She is a member of the Mineral Area Hemerocallis Society, Rose Hill Garden Club, River Roses Red Hats, Town and Country Extension and United Methodist Women.

A new endeavor for Hamilton is selling her plants wholesale, which she does at Southfork Garden Center in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and at Bayer Gardens in Imperial, Missouri.

While looking at Hamilton’s operation and listening to her knowledge, it is clear she is a life-long learner. Much of Hamilton’s continued learning comes from attending the University of Missouri Extension lectures, attending classes and talking with other gardeners.

“I’ve always been interested in gardening,” she says of her outlook on trying innovative growing methods, and of her decision to build the high tunnels. “I just like growing things.”