Greetings! I hope your garden is thriving and you’re enjoying the flavor and freshness of homegrown. And I hope you’ve had plenty to share.
Vegetable gardening has been an important part of my life since I was a small boy. My Mom took me out to the vegetable garden when I was 4 or 5, I suppose to keep an eye on me while she worked, and I’ve been in the garden ever since.
I started gardening more seriously in junior high and high school. I even raised and sold vegetables on the street corner in my hometown of Lisbon, ND. Raising a large garden and helping to plant flowerbeds while young steered me to study horticulture at NDSU.
I now enjoy planting a large garden that’s about 40 feet wide by 150 feet long, which is enough space to grow things that take a lot of room, like pumpkins, sweet corn, squash and melons. Although we grow a little of everything, I do have my favorites. Cabbage is fun to grow because it’s so fascinating to watch the developing heads, and the quality is so much better than store-bought. We plant plenty of carrots, potatoes, onions, squash and beets, because they store so well, giving us fresh vegetables all winter.
And we can’t forget tomatoes. The vegetable with the biggest difference between homegrown and store-bought is definitely the tomato, which keeps it at the top of the list as America’s number one garden vegetable.
If I had to pick one garden crop that’s my all-time favorite, it’s melons. Muskmelon or cantaloupe (there’s a botanical difference, but the names are almost always used interchangeably) picked fully ripe from the garden are mouth-watering sweet. It’s easy to tell when muskmelon are fully ripe, because they slip easily from the stem with a slight tug. When not quite ready, the remain firmly attached to the vines.
Watermelon are trickier to tell when ripe, because they always remain firmly attached to the vine stem. So you look for clues. The outer rind tends to lose its glossiness and become duller; the spot on which the melon is resting often turns from whitish to yellowish; the curly tendrils near the stem turn from green to brown; and the melon when thumped sounds like a water-filled rubber ball.
Do you know what gardening trend over the past decades encourages me most? It’s raised bed gardening, such as the Square Foot Gardening method. It’s amazing the production that comes from a well-tended, well-planted space.
My fascination with gardening causes me to produce more than my wife and I can use, even with 2 college-age sons living at home. So we give much away, which is a great reward in itself. And I’m sure you’ve found the same, with the Little Free Garden program.
Sometimes when I’ve got vegetables that I want to share I’ll make simple cardboard signs with the name of what’s currently ready, such as “Tomatoes are ripe, help yourself.” It gives people an idea of what to look for in the garden. Since many people aren’t familiar with when to harvest vegetables, letting them know what’s “up for grabs” today is helpful. Signs don’t need to be elaborate; a Sharpie on cardboard works fine.
I hope your summer is going well, and thanks for all you do. Gardening has rarely been more important.
- Don Kinzler, NDSU Extension Agent, Cass County Horticulture
P.S. If you have any questions, please send me an email. Thanks!