2015 Spring Garden - May 5th update

I had a late start this year, but the plants are catching up!  Hard to believe when I compare to the pics from a month ago.  Right now, I've got baby cucumbers, lots of small tomatos, a few small bell peppers. The west plot has been slow...  the watermelons and cantelopes have just started their growth spurt in the last week and are climbing the vertical frame.

I put snap beans in the ground and they came up in a couple days and are taking off!  I created five "rows" - at least a row in the SQFG idiom - and planted three.  The remaining two will be put in some time next week. In this way, I should get four harvests of beans (each Contender plant produces 2 sets of fruit).

Someone asked about where I planted the bell peppers (between rows of cucumbers and tomatoes). Their concern was that they'd be crowded out by the vines and not get enough sun or even nutrients. In my experiences over the years, bell peppers do okay in the Spring but great in the Fall.  If you can get them through the dog days of July and August. The cucumbers and tomatoes shade the peppers during the hottest days. While I had fair production in early summer, it was that Fall crop of peppers that was worth the wait.  Based on the average market price for green and red peppers (I picked about a 60/40 mix), the garden produced enough peppers in the Fall alone to cover all the expenses involved over the year for the entire garden (all plants, fertilizer, manure, top soil, etc).  That means that the hundreds of cucumbers, dozens of tomatoes, thousand or so cherry tomatoes, bushels of snap peas, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, etc, etc was all lagniappe!

The Fred Cormier Memorial Garden

My dad - or "Pop" as everyone in our family called him - was a man of many outdoor talents. He could hunt and fish like no one else could.  He was often featured on the local outdoor shows, and a constant contender at the annual ALBC Top 6 Bass Tournament (fyi, the Super Bowl of Louisiana bass fishing). 

And when it came to gardening, he was a master at that also!  Of course, his job was with the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, working with farmers, and with the folks at the LSU Extension Service.  So he was always up to the latest research on vegetable varieties.  He knew tomatoes and bell peppers better than they knew themselves, lol.  And every other crop as well.

Even after he retired, he kept his finger on the pulse of Louisiana agriculture - including garden crops. Living on 2 acres afforded more than enough room to plant a wide variety.  Even better, our home was on the bayou... the garden benefitted from the alluvial soils deposited over hundreds of years, back to when the Bayou Teche was the main artery for the Atchafalaya River.

That deep, rich soil combined with a colossal garden produced more veggies than you'll find at a supermarket!  During one season, it produced: tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, eggplant, zucchini, squash, cucumber, lima beans, snap beans, cowpeas, corn,  cabbage, lettuce, Chinese cabbage, snap peas, carrots, beets, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, winter squash.  I'm sure there's a few other veggies I missed... those are just the ones off the top of my head.

After Pop passed away, the family made an effort to continue the garden, albeit on a much smaller scale.  However, it seems to be growing in size a bit.  My nephews Steven and Ira, and Ira's wife Chrissy, have been instrumental in keeping it going.  The results have been pretty amazing.  The photos show 2 plots as of the first weekend in May.  The zuchini and squash are coming in, the eggplant is ready, so are the snap beans. I'm not sure if it's the slightly warmer climate one hour south of Alexandria, or that rich soil, but just about everything is ahead of mine except the cucumbers.  I'm guessing it's the latter.

Anywho, I'm so glad to see Pop's Memorial Garden is bringing fresh, organic produce to the family table once again.  He's probably bragging to his friends in Heaven about his industrious grandchildren.