Learn to read and learn

[seedcorn]

Since I've been gardening for 50+ years! I take too much for granted.

After ridge suggested a certain sweet potato, I looked it up. Which led to another article that told me they liked a soil pH of 5-6. News to me. Wonder what else I've been taking for granted?

 

[so lucky]

My problem is that the more I read and discover I don't know, the more I doubt my ability in the garden. And this leads to poorer crops somehow. The old saying "Ignorance is bliss" must have been talking about us old gardeners. (Well, me, anyway.)

 

[majorcatfish]

My problem is that the more I read and discover I don't know, the more I doubt my ability in the garden. And this leads to poorer crops somehow. The old saying "Ignorance is bliss" must have been talking about us old gardeners. (Well, me, anyway.)

Amen to that.................

 

[Smart Red]

My problem is that the more I read and discover I don't know, the more I doubt my ability in the garden. And this leads to poorer crops somehow. The old saying "Ignorance is bliss" must have been talking about us old gardeners. (Well, me, anyway.)

Agreed! I wouldn't have been eating home-grown blueberries for the past 20 years if I'd have read that they won't grow here before I planted them.

 

[baymule]

Despite all my best and worst efforts, I still manage to grow enough to offset the grocery bill. We have fresh vegetables almost all year. I draw on what my Daddy inadvertently taught me as I dogged his every footstep. I come here to celebrate my success and commiserate my failures. Seedcorn, I relate to what you are saying. Throw on some compost, bone meal, lime, wood ashes, determined by the culinary preference of whatever I am coaxing to grow, and we get good things to eat! Pick off green worms, move a little faster to catch that stinkbug and squish it so it can't sting my tomatoes, cheer for the ladybugs and assassin bugs. Watch the sunshine, the rainfall and take it for granted that the sun will come up and radiate it's energy and that the rain will fall and sustain life. Gardening is a wonder.

 

[897tgigvib]

I see both sides. Some of the gardening I did when I was young. Whooo! Sure didn't really know what I was doing, just winged it, or did things how my dad, mom, or my aunt, or family friend suggested, or sometimes not. It really made my garden methods be a mix. Rototil and make low or raised rows, or add watering trenches, several rimes, many times and finally realize that doesn't really work, not realize it was because the soil was such a mix of loam, clay, and topsoil with old grass roots.

Then the reading stuff. Then the all organic stuff, most I was doing already, but then trying composting, then the old bury it, then reading about composting taking nutrients if not deep enough or if not adding bone meal...

But there really are good books out there.

I THINK US HERE REALLY SHOULD WRITE A GARDENING BOOK!

All of our different and similar ways, each of our fortes, the really down to earth things that fancy published authors don't mention or that has to be found in some hard to find related book. For example, there is no easy to find book that'll tell you how to make one decent lawn mower out of two broken lawn mowers. (oh where's my coffee?)

But I sure do enjoy reading garden stuff!

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

or maybe something along the lines of what to grow in your geographical location, i.e. certain varieties/types of beans/tomatoes/carrots, etc. grow better in north east than south east or on the west coast.

my mom was the one that got me started with gardening as a little kid. dad taught me to till the ground and had me doing it every year i wanted to keep some veggies, but never showed me much about planting. mom taught me that we tend not to put plants (especially tomatoes/peppers) in till after Memorial Day weekend due to possible frost. though i push that limit each year and get some stuff in before that week! i did have a lot of access to gardening books as a kid and practically had those memorized. one of my grandmothers for a graduation gift gave me a gardening book and i think i learned from those as i went along. being on TEG has helped me understand things that some of the books never mentioned or had little knowledge about.

 

[so lucky]

Marshall, regarding the book idea: What if each one of us who wanted to, would just write an essay on any gardening subject, naming it appropriately. All the essays could be combined into a book, indexed maybe by region. Of course, there would be some conflicting advice, or information, but if the reader knew the essays were "opinions" it probably wouldn't cause any problems. All the different writing styles might be interesting. If it made any money it could be donated to a charity.

 

[seedcorn]

Not to be a downer, but books without pictures (lots of high quality) are of limited value.

Since this site is going to new format, wonder if they could have a place where people could add observations on different gardening products, practices, etc? Just wondering.

 

[897tgigvib]

That's what I was thinking of So Lucky, and yep, lots of pictures.

Ya know, maybe someone could ask Nifty if the new format could have some kind of working edit pages setup for us to write a book, each of us our part, and a way to edit them together...