Q. How do you keep the damn ‘coons, mice, birds, squirrels, or whatever from digging up your beans?

A. The same way my Grandma Putt cured me from biting my fingernails. She always cleaned out gourds by drilling a hole in them with her potato peeler and then saved the seeds for next year. She also saved the juice and flesh, added water to them, and kept the mixture in a jar. She would put some of this juice on my nails, and the rest she poured on corn and other big seeds just as she planted them. It’s the bitterest juice you ever tasted, and I reckon the varmints must hate it as much as I did.

Q. When do you thin beans?

A. Never; I plant pole beans two feet apart and bush beans nine inches apart. The seeds are large enough to plant separately.

Q. Why do my lima beans get so leggy and not have many beans?

A. You must pick the beans just as quickly as they mature. They want a sunny, warm location, with good drainage; very little food is necessary. Beans and peas are the best investment a gardener can make, as they give the biggest return for space and time invested.

Q. I think I have every seed catalog offered, and the more I look at them the more confused I become. Each company says their seeds are new and improved. Which are and which aren’t, and which bean would you recommend in each category?

A. I wish to give the seed growers a pat on the back because they’re all working hard to develop varieties that will resist bugs and diseases and need less water, food, and care—all for our benefit. To answer the first part of your question, they’re all improved. In my opinion, Top-Crop snapbean is a great bush bean, and you just can’t seem to beat Kentucky Wonder as a reliable, tasty, heavy producing pole bean. And I always recommend Clark’s Green-seeded Bush lima bean.

Q. Why don’t my beets ever get any bigger than a Ping-Fong ball? 

 

 

A. The soil is too heavy, probably clay; beets like light, loose soil. In heavy soil, dig a trench four inches wide and eight inches deep and fill with chopped or mowed leaves and sawdust. Beets need heat, light soil, and sand.

Q. Can beets be started indoors?

A. Can they ever! I use the cup part of paper egg cartons filled with light houseplant soil. My favorite variety is named after my home town, Detroit Dark Red beet.

Q. I want to grow my beets organically. What kind of food do you recommend?

A. Take your table scraps (not meat or bones) and place them in your blender. Add water to fill up your blender and liquify the scraps. Pour this liquid onto your beets and the rest of your garden, then Watch It Grow!

Q. What do you feed beets?

A. Any garden food in the spring.

Q. What’s the earliest and the latest you can plant beets?

A. The earliest is as soon as you can work the soil, and the latest is around August 15 in the East and Midwest, and July 15 in the North.

Q. How do you grow broccoli so that the heads don’t grow all over the place?

A. It depends on the variety you grow. I use Green Comet because it’s a tight headed variety.

Q. What kind of soil does broccoli like?

A. It can stand some dampness but not a lot.

Q. Can I plant my broccoli, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts together?

A. I would so I could give them all the same care and watch them for the same insects. As a matter of fact, it’s an excellent idea. Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts are all in the same family, and as a rule take up a hell of a lot of room, so remember that when you plan your garden.

Q. How early should you start your Brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower?

A. Start them indoors five weeks before you plan to set them out.

Q. Can I safely mulch cabbage without inviting insects?

A. I mulch my whole garden, lock, stock, and barrel, with grass clippings, straw, corn cobs, buckwheat hulls, sawdust, and so on, and I don’t have any more trouble with bugs than anyone who doesn’t mulch.

Q. My neighbor said you can use grass fertilizer to feed cabbage! Can you?

A. Your neighbor is right. I use grass food for anything that grows above the ground except tomatoes.

Q. Why do my carrots always grow all gnarled up, short and fat, or not at all?

A. Your carrots are probably in heavy soil. Carrots like rich, light soil that’s eight to ten inches deep. If your soil is clay, just dig an eight- to ten-inch trench and fill it with sand, peat, leaves, and sawdust. Carrots don’t do well in shade and prefer bright, sunny areas. Feed them with any garden food after foliage appears. I plant my seeds three inches apart, one at a time. I would rather do the separating work in the beginning than thin them later.

Q. Can you really plant cucumbers in hanging baskets?

A. Yes, and they also make great houseplants. The only problem with growing them in hanging baskets is that they like cool, slightly damp and shaded areas.

Q. Should you let cucumbers run on the ground or stake them?

A. I like to grow them up fences or trellises and mulch their feet.

Q. Are eggplants hard to grow?

A. Not as a rule, but what most folks forget is that eggplants never stop eating. Eggplants like rich, light soil and a sunny location. Plant seeds a half inch deep, two feet apart with two feet between rows. Feed regularly with liquefied table scraps.

Q. How do you know when to pick kohlrabi?

A. That’s a super question! Do you know that most folks who’ve grown it for years don’t know the answer? Kohlrabi is part of the cabbage family, but you eat the base; not the foliage or the root. Pick as soon as it’s the size of a handball or it’ll be like eating a croquet ball—woody.

Q. What makes lettuce get mushy and slimy?

A. This usually happens when lettuce is planted too late in the spring. Lettuce does not like warm weather, but it can be grown in hot weather if it’s grown in light shade. Lettuce is a very shallow rooted plant that needs plenty of food and must be kept damp.