Try your hand at gardening, one container at a time
Willie Stephens is known in his Tuskegee neighborhood as "the guru of container gardening."
Stephens, who is in his 80's, grows a variety of tomatoes and peppers as well as okra, cucumbers, squash, eggplant, broccoli, cauliflower and collards. His garden, he surmises, keeps his kitchen stocked with vegetables year-round.
Here, the retired vocational agriculture teacher offers the following tips for the novice container gardener:
- You can get started with just one or two containers. Put out plants that will produce consistently. Avoid snap beans or corn, for instance, because they just produce one time. Beginners should start with tomatoes, okra and peppers.
- If you live in a deer-heavy area, buy some rail wire -- available at home and garden centers in 4-, 5- and 6-feet heights -- cut it, then slide it over the containers.
- Stephens doesn't change his container soil out every year. He suggests taking the roots out, mixing in a little commercial fertilizer and stirring it up.
- Stephens uses 3-, 5-, 12-, 18- and 24-gallon containers. If you want a plant that will fill up the largest size, he suggests Morris heading collards, which grow upright for 2 or 3 feet, then form a cabbage-like head.
- A container garden must have three things to thrive: plant food, adequate water and direct sunlight.
- Stephens' soil formula for container success: A 40-pound bag of soil that has been treated to remove chemicals and micro-insects and a 40-pound bag of cow manure. He creates a 50/50 mix and then adds a little commercial fertilizer.
Stephens invites people to write him with their questions or to get a container gardening brochure by sending a stamped, self-addressed envelope to: Willie R. Stephens, 602 Alexander St., Tuskegee, AL, 36083.
Source: montgomeryadvertiser.com
