“A Rough Patch”
Written By Teresa Howell |
The year: 1908, or thereabouts. The place: Watauga, a soon-to-be born town at the end of the railroad line in South Dakota. The actors: Fred, John and Art Nehl, my great grandfather and his brothers. The task before them: sow the garden they’d tilled out of virgin sod before their wives arrived on the train from Iowa.
Unfortunately, the Nehl boys got into a jug of whiskey. They didn’t want to let work interfere with the fun, so they put all the seeds their wives had sent them in a broadcast seeder, seeded the patch, raked it a bit, and then broke out the second jug.
That garden was the best they ever grew.
Fast forward sixty years. Not far from that original patch, my parents were working in their own garden. My father, whose true passion was his team of Shetland ponies, had spent the past winter fabricating a cultivator he could use with his team. He’d instructed my mother as to the precise width of the rows, and thought he could cut a day’s worth of weeding down to an hour.
My parents still haven’t determined whether my mother’s crooked rows or my father’s crooked charioteering caused the resulting mayhem, but when he finished cultivating, only half the plants were standing.
The moral of these two stories, taken together: tidy rows are out, mixed beds are in.
Tidy rows have only been “in” for a short while, historically speaking. When people started farming with machines, they soon learned machines worked best with rows of a single type of crop. The new method of farming was so efficient the model was soon applied in the vegetable patch.
Gardening in rows does have its advantages. Harvesting is easier. You want peas? Go to the pea patch. No need to stumble over the whole garden looking for supper.
My great grandfather’s scatter-shot approach has its benefits as well. It makes more efficient use of space. By the time early crops like lettuce and radishes are done, slower maturing beets and tomatoes need the room. Because plants are closer together, weeds don’t have as much room to grow. Plants also shade the soil, so less water evaporates.
Some experts claim mixed bed plantings can even confuse pests, so that the potato bugs can’t find the potatoes. Add a few marigolds, and some host plants for beneficial insects, and the bugs are further confused.
However, you’ll probably want a better approach to your mixed beds than “drink a quart of whiskey.” You’ll have to plan the layout of the beds, and–here’s the hard part–construct them. Experts say you should make your beds no wider than four feet, so that you can easily reach the middle of the bed. You’ll need clearly defined paths so people don’t compact the soil by walking where they shouldn’t. The soil itself will need the same amendments that any garden needs.
You’ll also need to decide which crops you’ll plant together. One source claims that you should divide crops up by family. Related plants often have the same diseases, and grouping them allows you to rotate crops more efficiently. Once you have your plant “clans” established in their own bit of turf, you can add “friends” of the family. These are plants that deter pests or help the family out in some way. If you are interested, there are books available about companion planting.
Another method of planning is to let tradition be your guide. Southwestern Indians typically planted corn, squash and beans, together. The “three sisters,” as they were called, helped each other out. Beans provided nitrogen for the heavy-feeding corn, and the corn supported the climbing beans. Squash formed a living mulch, preserving water and shading the soil.
The whiskey you’ll have to get on your own, but, you’ll find valuable information at winngarden.org.
When Teresa Howell isn’t finding new methods of planting, she teaches English at Great Basin College.
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