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April 12, 2010 There and Back

Gone to seed | Harvesting a garden in Maine can be dirty work

By John Mcdonald

With the warm weather we've been having, it's not surprising that people around here have started thinking about putting in their gardens.

There's always a debate among serious gardeners, one I've heard every year for as long as I can remember, about how early you can set your tomato plants out or when's the best time to put your pea seeds in the ground. Those who argue against early planting say a late frost can knock your plants back so hard it could take them weeks to recover. The early planters say they like to take the gamble because if they win, they'll have the first ripe tomatoes or fresh peas in town.

Anyway, I was shuffling stacks of important papers around my neat but not overly ostentatious office on one of those pleasant days recently, and I came across my stack of seed catalogs that I received sometime last December. I've often wondered why seed catalog companies start sending me catalogs before Christmas. Who thinks about Memorial Day weekend planting before Christmas and the sun's winter solstice business? I sure don't.

I don't remember that my mother got many seed catalogs in the mail or planted a garden in our yard out back when I was a kid. Most of our fresh summer vegetables came from Sonny Leighton's roadside stand, which opened sometime in June. Even as a kid I could tell when we rode by Sonny's that it must be tough running a roadside stand in Maine in June. The only fresh items in abundance in Sonny's garden that early were freshly picked rhubarb and Swiss chard, so Sonny wasn't exactly out straight with business at first. In fact, early on, Sonny would stay up to the house most of the time and only come down to the stand if he noticed someone pull up. It wasn't until his fresh peas and beans started arriving that business really picked up.

When I was around 10, I remember buying some packets of seeds down at Tink's Tru Value Hardware, digging up a patch of ground in the yard and planting some vegetable seeds to see what would happen. I was told by those who claimed to know that no matter what else I got, I shouldn't forget radish seeds.

Although I had never knowingly eaten a radish and didn't see that they served any particular purpose, I did remember to add a packet of radish seeds to the pile and it turned out to be a wise move. Of all the vegetable seeds I got -- peas, beans, lettuce, celery -- the radishes were not only the first to pop out of the ground, they were the only things to grow and thrive. Although I don't particularly like radishes any more now than I ever did, I will never forget them for their help so long ago with that first garden.

Best picks

This year we're planning a bigger garden than last year's up to camp, so I was glad to discover that my catalogs were still around. Now that April is here and planting weather can't be but seven or eight weeks away, I feel like sitting down and ordering some seeds.

The first catalog I picked up was from Johnny's Selected Seeds in Winslow, always a good source for seeds designed to do well here in Maine. Next off the pile was a catalog from a place called Deer Resistant Landscape Nursery in Clare, Michigan. I don't know how they got my address, but after looking through their pages I thought they might have a few things I need. I figure with all the deer tracks we have up to camp, we'll have to do everything possible to keep those hungry vegetarians from marking our garden their all-you-can-eat salad bar.

Offering packages of deer repellent, deer resistant plants, eight-foot tall deer fencing and all kinds of books outlining the best ways to repel deer, these Michigan people seem pretty focused on the problem and ready to help. If I buy all this stuff, I just hope the deer know enough to play their part in this drama and keep their distance.

The next catalog was from Ronniger's Potato Farm in Moyie, Idaho. I didn't go looking for them; these Idaho folks found me and I've always wanted to try some Idaho potatoes in the camp garden. A friend said he had great luck with Ronniger's and their potatoes, which sport names like Dakota Rose, Early Ohio and Irish Cobbler. Just don't tell anyone up in Aroostook County about this.

I'm just not sure what would happen to my soil if I buried a few rows of Early Ohios from Idaho in ground meant for Aroostook russets.

John McDonald, an author, humorist and storyteller who performs throughout New England, can be reached at mainestoryteller@yahoo.com. Read more of John's columns here.

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