Gardening advice from a salty old fisherman

Jill Severn

Photo by Anna Schlecht

In the garden, failure is often the best teacher, but only if you have the patience to learn from it.

Last year, in the early months of the pandemic, people stripped the grocery store seed racks bare of peas, beans and broccoli by mid-April. That’s doesn’t seem to be happening this year, which makes me wonder how many pandemic-panicked people planted green beans in the shade, forgot to water them, or made other rookie errors and have now concluded they “just don’t have a green thumb.” That’s sad.

No one has green thumbs. But it’s not hard to see why some people are surprised to find that they need to learn more to succeed. After all, the world is full of growing plants, most of which get no help from humans. How hard could this be?

But of course, growing a vegetable garden takes time, patience, and tolerance for disappointment. And learning.

I was fortunate to be taught by a salty old retired fisherman. His first lesson was about the value of horse manure, compost, and the need for ample organic matter in the soil. He also taught me which vegetables insist on full sun (including corn, tomatoes, squash, and beans), and which will tolerate some shade (peas, most plants like lettuce that are grown for their leaves, with certain exceptions such as basil).

I am slightly embarrassed to admit he also had to teach me to pay attention to where the sun comes up, and how it changes its route across the sky with the seasons. That was important in our clearing in the woods; it’s even more important in an urban setting where a spot that’s sunny for a couple of months on either side of the summer solstice may be in the shade of the house next door by the 10th of August.

His next lesson: if you want to know if it’s time to water, stick your hand in the soil. Your hand is the best water meter. If it’s dry more than an inch down, water. Check again after you water to make sure you’ve delivered enough.

To kill plant pests, he taught me to use rotenone, which he thought was organic because it was used by indigenous people in South America. That was a mistake; it’s since been shown to be carcinogenic. Thurston County has better advice on fighting pests and pestilence at https://www.growsmartgrowsafe.org

So, to sum up the short course for new or newish vegetable gardeners: sun, soil, water, pests, patience. Those are the critical elements.

To learn much more, here is an online brief, downloadable free book, kindly sent to us by Susie Vanderburg. It is a pretty thorough guide to vegetable gardening that is smart, charming and informative: https://gardeningwithnana.blog.

Her best observation is that no two people garden in quite the same way. That’s what makes visiting each other’s gardens so much fun, and the very best source of ideas and advice. 

Jill Severn writes from her home in Olympia, where she grows vegetables, flowers and a small flock of chickens. She loves conversation among gardeners. Start one by emailing her at jill@theJOLTnews.com