BIG SUMMER DEALS: Homeowners turn to gardens for more than just savings

It's barely 8 a.m. on a recent spring morning and the phone is already ringing with calls for help at the OSU Extension offices in Waverly and Chillicothe.



What may seem at first to be calls for assistance saving dollars in a challenging economy are actually people who want to spend less energy in food production and have more control over what they're eating.

To do that, they want to grow their own vegetable gardens. While such gardens can save growers the expense of purchasing produce at the supermarket, there are plenty of questions to be answered for the novice grower. For instance: How big should my garden be? How far apart should the rows be? When is the best time to plant?

Jeff Fisher, extension educator for the OSU Extension, encourages callers to access the wealth of information available on the Internet and said there are five very basic points to properly begin a vegetable garden. They include testing the soil and improving it if needed, making sure you have all the basic tools, determining garden size based on family size, learning the frost dates for the local area and planning details of the garden thoroughly.

Dave Mangione, with the Ross County OSU Extension office, engages the help of the local master gardener program. The master gardeners receive 60 hours of free, intensive training during the winter months and give back 60 hours between April and September to their county's outreach efforts.

Local master gardener President Jane Harper said the outreach response is inspiring for the master gardeners, as well as for the residents they assist. People come to love gardening and want to continually make their process and their products better and better, she said.

"I've raised tomatoes for several years," says master gardener intern Cynthia Brown, of Chillicothe. "But through our training, I've learned how soil testing and amendment and rotating my crops can significantly better my tomato production.

"In addition, I've learned a better way to stake tomatoes. By replacing my old nylon stockings method with twine around the stakes, the tomatoes sit safer and production should definitely be better."

"For some time, the only product I knew for pest management had been detrimental to honey bees," said Richmond Dale resident Tim Leach. "In our master gardener training, they recommended a pesticide based on an organic chemical. Thuricide has been very effective and does not harm honey bees."

According to master gardener and busy mom Jo Shuman, of Chillicothe, intelligent gardening and horticulture are a center-piece for the whole family, including their three boys.

"We have 21¼2 acres, and until we tested our soil, we didn't understand why some things would not grow," she said. "Testing was an inexpensive and extremely valuable thing to do. Everyone helps in the garden, including our twin 4-H Cloverbuds Jason and James, 7, and Jacob, 10, a 4-H environmental officer."

In the community garden patch at Bristol Village retirement community, Waverly has gardeners who grew up during the Great Depression and have wielded hoes for a lifetime. Strong-backed, proud and independent in nature, they grow lush vegetables and share them broadly.

Larry and Carol Parker, each 74, came to Bristol Village from West Virginia and a farming background.

"Since age 7, I have really liked to be self-sufficient," said Larry, a retired engineer for the federal government and Baptist pastor

"Times were tough. I'd wanted a trumpet very, very much. We had a city block of property and my mom helped me plant gardens upon gardens. I managed to make myself a wagon and sold my vegetables by the bushel - just under the prices at the local grocery. I got my trumpet."

Patty and Earl Todt, in their 80s, grew up on farms in the Depression and have early memories of food and gardens.

"When I was six, my father gave me and each of my three older brothers a pet rabbit. Early on, we understood that all other rabbits, like the vegetables in our garden patch, were food sources. We sold apples door-to-door and made grape juice in huge copper pots in the summer kitchen. I've always liked vegetables and eating with the seasons.

This year for the first time, the Todts are growing mesculin because, "It is so expensive in the store."

Waverly resident Jose Tiu, an RN at the VA Medical Center, enjoys coming home to work in his nearly 100 square feet of vegetable garden - bountiful and green with cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, zucchini and more.

"The garden relieves job stress," offers Tiu with a smile, adding that it provides him and his wife, Lara, an aquaculture specialist for the Pike County OSU Extension, endless and delicious opportunities to grill.