TimesLeader.com

April 11, 2009

Plenty of local homeowners will return t

By Mike McGinley mmcginley@timesleader.com
Features Writer

Plenty of local homeowners will return to their roots this spring – literally.

At least that’s what horticulturalist Barbara Mannick of Dundee Gardens in Hanover Township thinks.

She and manager Mary Ellen O’Shea are seeing more people coming in for gardening supplies as the cool growing season approaches and “recession gardening” – a.k.a. victory gardening -- becomes a popular way for locals to save money while eating healthy fare.

“That’s what people are doing this year,” O’Shea said. “Everything is green, organic and do-it-yourself.”

They’re just starting to come now for cool-season crops, Mannick said. “People are saying, ‘I’ve never tried this before.’ ”

“I think it’s because of the economy,” she said.

Her three picks for the most popular staple vegetables this year are lettuce, broccoli and cabbage.

“There’s nothing like a fresh salad,” she said, referring to lettuce, which can either be grown in a container or in a vegetable garden.

Right now, during the in-between weather, she recommends planting actual plants as opposed to seeds. By growing lettuce leaves now, gardeners can cut the leaves every two weeks to eat them, while new ones continually grow until it gets too hot.

“In the summer, lettuce needs a shaded area,” said Mannick, who lives on a third of an acre in Nuangola where she said “everything is planted.”

She recommends putting a handful of fertilizer around each plant after about two weeks and not planting each piece too closely together because the roots can choke each other.

The horticulturalist harvested 90 pounds of potatoes last year at her house and thinks growing your own vegetables is an affordable way to provide meals for weeks to come, especially if people choose to freeze their crops.

For instance, she said, spring-grown broccoli can last several months in the freezer over the summer until the fall growing season gets under way.

Broccoli is easy to grow in the spring and fall.

Plant broccoli, which is high in vitamins A and C, in an outdoor vegetable garden that gets good sunlight and apply fertilizer after two weeks as well.

“The broccoli we eat is the flower,” she said, noting gardeners should harvest the buds when they’re tight and firm.

And, because “we have a lot of Polish, Slovak and Lithuanians in our area,” cabbage is always a popular vegetable to grow. What’s a pig in the blanket without its outer wrap of cabbage?

“It’s best in the ground,” Mannick said, as opposed to in a container.

It’s OK to plant the cool-season crops now, but Mannick warns that if it drops to 28 degrees or lower, it’s a good idea to put a blanket or beach towel over them until the temperature climbs.

Gardeners won’t have to worry much about outdoor temperatures if they use the EarthBox, which Mannick and O’Shea said is the thing to buy this season.

The self-watering container – created in Scranton and sold across the country -- doesn’t allow gardeners to over fertilize and is used indoors and out. It generally sells for $54 to $60.

Mannick recently grew two eggplants in hers but said practically anything can be grown in there – from corn and herbs to flowers and even melons.

“It’s nice for older people that don’t want to dig their own soil or for people that live around deer,” she said. When placed on a back deck, the deer won’t approach it and eat the crops.

Tomatoes are a popular vegetable grown in the EarthBox, too, but as Mannick told a customer on a recent afternoon, “It’s too early” for them.

She said it’s best to wait on tomatoes until it’s “consistently above 40 degrees at night.”

TO LEARN MORE

What: Spring into Gardening workshop

Where: Penn State Wilkes-Barre, Lehman Township

When: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. April 25

Why: The day-long event organized by the Penn State Cooperative Extension will offer workshops dealing with recession gardening, organic gardening and container gardening, among others

Cost: $30

Register: Call 825-1701