They say travel broadens but only for the curious and open-minded.  Whether you venture to the next garden, or country, even overseas, and you have a keen eye and inquiring mind you’ll be pleased with your discoveries.

During my recent ventures to Canada’s Maritime Provinces, their farms and gardens demonstrated practices I found strange and new. I wondered why they did what they did and so I tracked down the extension agent (agricultural resource coordinator) for Mabou, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. He was “in the field” so Cheryl Chandler, communications and resource specialist referred me to the previous agent, now retired, Leo Cox.

My questions were the usual and could certainly be answered with online research but I wanted a local perspective: growing season, first and last killing frost, soil pH and profile, preferred flowers and vegetables.

Cox’s own gardens were sited on the southwest side of his white clapboard house. The soil is “thin” and stony with a pH range of 4.5-6. I saw scant evidence of mulch though he said it was there. Mulch seems an unnecessary chore where rain comes every 10 days or so. His vegetable garden was newly turned awaiting tomato seedlings and seed potatoes, his rhubarb patch, large and lush.  Seems every homestead has a patch of rhubarb. Strawberries come later and easily, in this acid soil.

Cox said it was no use putting in seeds or seedlings until after June 4, when experience showed there’d be a heavy frost. They can catch up quickly. However, he admitted a killing frost could come anytime during the summer.

Some gardens have predatory deer, some, brutal frosts. It’s always something. They haven’t had a dry summer since 1975, when there were three weeks straight without rain, a virtual drought by his account. Imagine!

Newfoundland and Labrador soils are mostly sandy loam, high in silt and sand but low in clay. Easy to work, but nutrients wash through quickly. Organic matter like compost halts the leaching but only for a season. Nitrogen-poor plants look pale green, faded. Every soil has it virtues. Some soils are perfect but rapacious practices will always wear out the finest.

Cox showed me a remarkably simple technique for growing potatoes, developed by an inventive 4H program, junior member.

Set a discarded automobile tire on the ground; fill with ordinary topsoil and add three seed potatoes; set another tire on top of the first. As green shoots appear, cover lightly with soil, adding tires until there are five.

This project yielded 75 pounds last year. Harvest at season’s end by removing one tire at a time. Cox began his tire/container around the second week of May. I saw two in place. He is optimistic.

I told him of the potato bags being sold online and my idea to sew my own, using landscape fabric. Tires are less trouble, but I’m concerned that like rubber mulch they might harbor harmful contaminants.

Nevertheless, for the next excursion beyond your garden’s boundaries, notice a bit and inquire a lot. Gardeners love to share their knowledge and exchange ideas.

TIP OF THE WEEK
Water new plants deeply (2-4 inches) every week to 10 days unless there is a soaking rain, or each morning with a drip hose at medium pressure. Nip the side buds of chrysanthemums to encourage large, sturdy autumn blooms. Continue to prune diseased and damaged limbs and stems; remove interior sprouts from compact shrubs, letting in more light.