Tips From Riverberry Farm On Your Home Garden

[Henry]

Tonight on Channel 3 News Dave Marchant of River Berry Farm in Fairfax says, "The cost benefit can be quite high."

An average size garden-- about a 40 by 40 plot -- will cost about $280 to get started. That's plants, seeds, supplies, water and compost.

"Input costs are not that large compared to what you can get out of it," Marchant says.

Marchant says a successful garden can yield $2,500 worth of produce. That's what you'd spend at the grocers or farmer's market. A recent study shows a return on your gardening investment can be more than 860 percent!

Dave & Darron were on video, however, they don't have the video up on their web site, at least not yet, but if you want to read some of Dave Marchant's other tips, click on the following link:

http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=10096729&nav=menu183_2

[Henry]

When I was watching Dave Marchant and Derron Peron last night during the interview, there was one item they didn't mention that you could plant early and perhaps one item that most people don't plant and that is Swiss Chard.  I have sandy soil here and once the hot weather hit, that was it for my spinach, thus Swiss Chard was the alternative.  Swiss Chard isn't something you use in salads, but placed in hot water until it is tender with a little sugar and vinegar, it is very good and does give you some leafy green vegetables.  Since I am in a frost pocket, other seeds I used to plant as early as I could, usually around April 15th were lettuce, carrots, beets, peas, cabbage, all hardy and not bothered by cold weather.  I would plant a couple hills of cabbage from seed (3 seeds to a hill & keeping the one most healthy) every couple of weeks to spread them out as if you plant them all at once, you can never hold them from splitting, even if you go out and give them a quarter turn to slow their growth as they get bigger.  Parsnips can also be planted early, however they are not good, to me at least until the following spring when they are just as sweet as they can be.  I used to buy a few packages of radish seeds as I never ate them, but they were great for marking where the slow items to come out of the ground like carrots, lettuce & parsnips were.

I no longer plant a garden, however, I have to say that when I did, it was more to provide vegetables for us and our parents, not out of a love for finding something to do as I also worked a lot of long hours.  One of the things I did not plant was sweet corn as I always found that easier to buy from our local vegetable stands.  My favorite tomato to plant was Jet Stars, a beautiful tomato and delicious.  My favorite squash was Buttercup and I planted the Bush Type so they did not spread as much.  I generally ordered my seeds from Vesey's in York, PEI, Canada as they had a lot of short seasoned seeds.  In regards to peas, I preferred Green Arrow which always gave me a full pod of peas, unlike many you buy fresh that may have only one to three peas in the pod.

Each gardener has his or her own little quirks about how to plant and raise their produce.  I even raised strawberries for a while, but since when I was doing it, did not have my artesian well and not much water, when I would get home from work at midnight and the berries were blossoming and the frost might hit them, used to shine my headlights on the berry patch as I covered them with old sheets.  All fun, fun, fun, in this little frost pocket I live in.