Time to plant: Cultivating vegetable gardens a rewarding experience
The eyes on the russet potatoes in my potato bin have spoken. It’s time to plant a vegetable garden.
There has to be a secret to how, come February, those buds hidden away in a potato can detect spring is right around the corner and pop out like eyes.
Come February, most farmers will have their land tilled with rows laid off ready to plant one of the earliest crops in the vegetable garden: The lowly potato. From around Valentine’s Day until the end of the month — or two weeks before the last killing frost date — seed potatoes will be purchased from the feed and seed store and readied for planting.
The seed potato will have several good “eyes,” as the buds on it are called. A large section of the potato with at least one good eye, not more than two, will be cut off and laid with the rest of the cuttings in a flat tray or box to allow them to callus for 24 hours before planting.
A good section of the potato’s flesh will be left on when the eye is cut, as the plant will live on this stored food while sprouting. With good weather, the potato plant will mature 90 to 120 days after planting and usually a cooking of small new taters can be grappled from around the plant to cook for Mother’s Day dinner in May.
Having been around vegetable gardens all my life, I know all farmers have their own ideas of gardening, but there’s one thing almost all will refer to, and that is an almanac. In most homes, especially a farmer’s, two books are most likely to be found: The Bible and a good almanac.
An almanac’s primarily focus is on gardening and planting calendars, but they also include recipes, articles on cooking, hunting and fishing, and a 12-month calendar section, including astrological information, weather forecasts, tides and holidays.
“Poor Richard’s Almanac” is the most famous almanac, started by Benjamin Franklin in 1732, and was published for 25 years.
Some of the other well-known almanacs are the “Old Farmer’s Almanac,” which started circulation in 1792, the “Farmer’s Almanac,” since 1818, and “Grier’s,” celebrating its 208th anniversary, published consecutively since 1807.
While some folks think of the planting pointers in almanacs as folklore, the true farmer thinks of them as gospel, such as following the moon phases and zodiac signs as days to plant certain crops, whether they be above ground crops or root crops.
Just as the moon, one of God’s celestial creations, has the gravitational pull on the rivers’ high and low tides, it also has an effect on the planting and growing season. The saying is to plant all things that yield above ground while the moon is increasing in size and plant all things that yield below ground (carrots, potatoes, turnips, etc.) while the moon is waning.
The only exception I have found from experience is the planting of field peas, although above ground crops, should be planted on the decrease of the moon or dark nights so as to bear more peas and less bush.
Some folks are affirmative that the best time to plant is on Good Friday, the Friday before Easter, regardless of what the signs are or what phase the moon is in. But it normally works out favorably for them anyway, since Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the Vernal Equinox, which is spring.
Planting a garden with rows of squash, cucumbers, potatoes, beans, peas, corn and various other vegetables is a rewarding experience that you can enjoy for months on end.
Having the right planting equipment is a plus and figuring out a way to keep the foraging animals, deer, from helping themselves to the produce before you get the chance is another problem to conquer.
Because of the size of our garden, we were able to achieve this obstacle by using what I called my “eggnog” mixture: One blended raw egg added to a gallon spray container of water sprayed on the rows of vegetables. It periodically kept the deer at bay. They didn’t like the sulfur odor they could detect, but it was not harmful to the plants.
Happy planting, and enjoy!
Jean Tanner is a lifelong resident of rural Bluffton and can be reached at email@example.com.