Interview with Beth Garner (Gardening in Arkansas)
Scroll down to see - Pictures of Beth's Beautiful Arkansas Garden.
Growing a family vegetable garden takes some hard work, but when the season puts forth its bounty of fresh tender tasty vegetables, the gardener reaps the rewards. Many gardeners I know have raised gardens year after year. My father was a master gardener and raised a garden for 70 of his 91 years upon this earth, and that is not counting the years he helped in his parents’ garden as a child. His gardens were of various sizes ranging from a small backyard garden to a truck patch. Family, friends, and neighbors all enjoyed the fruits of my father’s labors. My lifelong friend, Beth Garner learned to garden by her mother’s side, and has continued to raise her own vegetables in a backyard garden for many years. Besides enjoying the food grown at its freshest peak of vine ripened flavor, Beth also preserves some of her crop by methods of canning and freezing to be enjoyed during the cold winter months.
As the pictures below show, Beth, and her husband Larry, raise a fairly large garden and it is lovely, to say the least. I asked if she would share some of their techniques. She said they used composted decomposed horse manure for fertilizer. This is a great choice for organic gardening and also a good process of natural recycling from their own horse barn lot. I also asked about Critter Control for anyone who has raised a garden knows it is sometimes a competition between you and the deer, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, birds, and turtles as to who gets to the first garden pics of the season. Beth said some of the methods they used to keep the critters away were: keeping a battery operated radio playing in the garden to scare off the deer and other animals. They also put up an electric fence around the garden. I shared with her that we sometimes cut up pieces of aluminum pans, punched a hole in the pieces and tied strings to them, then, tied them to some of the plant stems along the row of plants. The shiny swinging pieces of aluminum effectively kept some of the bandits at bay. I also asked Beth if they used cages and trellis in their garden. Her answer was “yes” – they placed cages around the tomatoes and ran a wire fence along beside vining plants like cucumbers, squash, and bean so that they could grow vertically. This is a great way to keep the vegetables off the ground and deter insect infestation and rot. As far as combating insects in the garden goes, Beth stated that they usually use a powdered form of insect repellent such as Seven. Then finally, as anyone who has ever gardened knows, there is the weeding of the garden which needs to be done to prevent the weeds from competing with the vegetable plants for soil nutrients and water. In a nutshell, Beth advised me that a successful garden can be obtained by following these few rules: Choose a sunny, well drained site for the garden. Have water accessibility. Have a plan for dealing with critters and bus. Choose a natural based fertilizer. Deal with garden bugs at the earliest onset and use an environmentally friendly insect control method whenever possible. Beth also stated that she loves to garden for many reasons, some of which include: she loves the vine-ripened taste of foods from garden to fork – she loves to plant seeds and watch things grow – and, she loves saving money. Gardening is also very therapeutic in regards to clearing stress and gives the person a good physical workout.
I hope you will take a moment to scroll down through the following pictures of Beth Garner’s Garden and enjoy them. Also, at the end of this blog post, recipes (garden to fork) will be listed.
Take a look at these photos of the beautiful garden that Beth and her husband, Larry, raised this year.
Scroll down to see - Pictures of Beth's Beautiful Arkansas Garden.
Growing a family vegetable garden takes some hard work, but when the season puts forth its bounty of fresh tender tasty vegetables, the gardener reaps the rewards. Many gardeners I know have raised gardens year after year. My father was a master gardener and raised a garden for 70 of his 91 years upon this earth, and that is not counting the years he helped in his parents’ garden as a child. His gardens were of various sizes ranging from a small backyard garden to a truck patch. Family, friends, and neighbors all enjoyed the fruits of my father’s labors. My lifelong friend, Beth Garner learned to garden by her mother’s side, and has continued to raise her own vegetables in a backyard garden for many years. Besides enjoying the food grown at its freshest peak of vine ripened flavor, Beth also preserves some of her crop by methods of canning and freezing to be enjoyed during the cold winter months.
As the pictures below show, Beth, and her husband Larry, raise a fairly large garden and it is lovely, to say the least. I asked if she would share some of their techniques. She said they used composted decomposed horse manure for fertilizer. This is a great choice for organic gardening and also a good process of natural recycling from their own horse barn lot. I also asked about Critter Control for anyone who has raised a garden knows it is sometimes a competition between you and the deer, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, birds, and turtles as to who gets to the first garden pics of the season. Beth said some of the methods they used to keep the critters away were: keeping a battery operated radio playing in the garden to scare off the deer and other animals. They also put up an electric fence around the garden. I shared with her that we sometimes cut up pieces of aluminum pans, punched a hole in the pieces and tied strings to them, then, tied them to some of the plant stems along the row of plants. The shiny swinging pieces of aluminum effectively kept some of the bandits at bay. I also asked Beth if they used cages and trellis in their garden. Her answer was “yes” – they placed cages around the tomatoes and ran a wire fence along beside vining plants like cucumbers, squash, and bean so that they could grow vertically. This is a great way to keep the vegetables off the ground and deter insect infestation and rot. As far as combating insects in the garden goes, Beth stated that they usually use a powdered form of insect repellent such as Seven. Then finally, as anyone who has ever gardened knows, there is the weeding of the garden which needs to be done to prevent the weeds from competing with the vegetable plants for soil nutrients and water. In a nutshell, Beth advised me that a successful garden can be obtained by following these few rules: Choose a sunny, well drained site for the garden. Have water accessibility. Have a plan for dealing with critters and bus. Choose a natural based fertilizer. Deal with garden bugs at the earliest onset and use an environmentally friendly insect control method whenever possible. Beth also stated that she loves to garden for many reasons, some of which include: she loves the vine-ripened taste of foods from garden to fork – she loves to plant seeds and watch things grow – and, she loves saving money. Gardening is also very therapeutic in regards to clearing stress and gives the person a good physical workout.
I hope you will take a moment to scroll down through the following pictures of Beth Garner’s Garden and enjoy them. Also, at the end of this blog post, recipes (garden to fork) will be listed.
Take a look at these photos of the beautiful garden that Beth and her husband, Larry, raised this year.
These are just a few of the varieties of vegetables that Beth and Larry grow.
Beth loves preserving some of her garden's bounty of vegetables to be enjoyed all year round.
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