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Wednesday, 22 February 2012 2:55 |
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by Bob Smith
Hi there.
I have lived in climate zones similar to northern Indiana all my life, and I can’t remember a more pleasant winter weather year than we have experienced here in the winter of 2011-2012! Sure, it has snowed a little, and made slippery roads for one or a very few days, but the snow plows and salt trucks came out before the school buses pick up students, and the temperature climbs above freezing enough to melt nearly all ice from the roads we travel. Of course, it is awhile until spring and summer roll in, so we will continue to pay attention to the temperature and weather information.
We are very careful – actually Judy is very careful, because she has been driving my car to carry me to everywhere I need to go, and she takes care of my every need since I had a lumbar spine fusion last August, with three inch titanium screws anchoring my spine to a stainless steel plate keeping everything in order.
Full recovery may take one year - but I am past the sixth month, but still using a wheeled walker to perambulate and I have had excellent care and treatment, I recommend that if spinal fusion is recommended, that you check any possible alternatives – and, “THANK YOU, JUDY, for all you have done for me!”
I hope you grow some plants, and hopefully a garden, with flowers, and food items like beans, tomatoes, squash, vegetables, sweet corn, peppers, and fruit, etc. If you don’t know how, but would like to, you could ask the gardeners you know, or owners of gardens you admire, for assistance – like the name of their seed providers. They wouldn’t mind helping you with seed catalog information and advice.
When I was young, my father started seeds he saved from last year’s garden, or a packet of seeds for about ten cents, in shallow boxes of moist soil, kept behind the wood burning stove that burned all night. Seeds need warmth and moisture to start growing, and proper light, 16 hours a day to become producing plants. Currently, seed packets are often offered for $2.50 per packet, and we usually buy more than one year’s supply of each kind of seeds we plant, because they can be stored in a refrigerator or freezer for years before planting.
Seed catalogs will often mention what ‘Planting Zones’ the pictured seed will best be grown in, and seed packets will usually say if and when those seeds should be started indoors, to avoid late freezes when planted in your garden. The U.S. Department of Agriculture produces this map, and it has just been updated-for the first time since 1990, and some areas in some states like us and Ohio, are in slightly warmer zones, because the “coldest days of the year there” aren’t as cold as they used to be, and in this area, which used to be Zone 5 – some of it is Zone 5B, and some of it Zone 6A! I think it is the result of global warming! But some people just don't believe the globe is warming!
My good friend, Ricky Kemery, Horticultural Educator for the Northeastern Indiana Extension Service, says gardeners should be wary of starting seeds of annuals OUTDOORS too early in the spring. We start most garden seeds under proper fluorescent lights (one cool white bulb, one warm white bulb) downstairs in the basement, with a timer that turns them on for 16 hours, and off for eight hours each day.
We usually move the plants outside to a trailer to ‘harden off’ a week before planting, and pull the trailer out into the sunlight during warm daylight hours, and put it back in the barn when night approaches. We usually plant our garden on Memorial Day, and some neighbors plant a little sooner – and somehow get the first tomato sandwich before we do! – but when we planted before Memorial Day, sometimes we had some plants FROZEN.
If you are computer wise, you can click on the USDA’s Planting Zone Map, enter your zip code, and get the up-to-date estimate of “average frost free days.” I will still try to plant on Memorial Day! Good gardening . . . by Bob Smith Hi there. I have lived in climate zones similar to northern Indiana all my life, and I can’t remember a more pleasant winter weather year than we have experienced here in the winter of 2011-2012! Sure, it has snowed a little, and made slippery roads for one or a very few days, but the snow plows and salt trucks came out before the school buses pick up students, and the temperature climbs above freezing enough to melt nearly all ice from the roads we travel. Of course, it is awhile until spring and summer roll in, so we will continue to pay attention to the temperature and weather information.
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Wednesday, 09 November 2011 9:11 |
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by Bob Smith
Hi there.
I just suddenly realized that my last gardening column was written in July of 2011, and I stated that I was going to have some hospital time coming up. Judy has said I was in a lot of pain, and needed the surgery on my back, but – naturally, I don’t remember having any pain back then – but now that my spine has been fused – requiring about a six month recovery time to get back to my full gardening health! I recommend to you that when spinal fusion is offered to you, you exhaust all other alternatives! I was fused on August 23, I am now well into my third month of recovery, and I am still relying on my good friend, Kevin Pequinot, whom I hired while healthy, to help me keep up with my beloved gardening labors. I thank my lucky stars he hasn’t left my needy side, and I think I will be ready to get back to my own gardening next spring.
We have eaten the last of our beloved tomato sandwiches, we didn’t get too much garden produce canned this year, but we plan to do better in the gardening and canning area next year. I was born in Pennsylvania, on the banks of the Susquehanna River, the son of a Scotch family farmer. You may have read about floods on that and many other major rivers this year, and I feel like maybe Whitley County, Indiana, might be one of the more fortunate weather and climate areas in the United States. I hope it continues to provide good farming and gardening weather.
I bought some Crocus bulbs last year, and asked that those of you who could, write a gardening letter to “The Editor”, of this paper, and that I would give some of those Crocuses to the writer selected. The winner, selected by the Editor, is the Owner of Egolf’s Grocery Store, Bob Egolf, whom we consider an outstanding member of this Community. Crocus bulbs, like other spring flowering bulbs, should be planted in the fall, - and since I not only can’t drive, but must even walk using a “walker”, and not never even bend over, and certainly not even kneel until about six months after my August 23 Spinal Fusion – Kevin will plant the Crocus bulbs between Bob Egolf’s Grocery Store, and Dr. Willyard’s Medical Office, and I hope their beautiful colorful blossoms will please you early next Spring.
Judy is doing all the work Kevin can’t get to, and I am very appreciative of their good efforts. My fusion was done at Parkview Main Hospital, (without any memory of my first four days there). I barely remember being driven from there to “The Oaks,” a Nursing Home and Rehabilitating Center just off Rt. 30 in Western Columbia City, a facility of Parkview Whitley Hospital.
I have spent much time in many hospitals, and I must tell you, sincerely, that the staff of “The Oaks” had the most dedicated staff of any hospital I have ever visited! ! I hope that many of you already know of the excellent care provided there, and if you don’t, I hope you take the time to just visit them, and enquire about their Rehabilitation and Nursing Home Care. It might be just what you might need – someday in the future – and they might remember your interest.
I plan to take them a copy of this column, and thank them sincerely for their excellent care. When I was discharged from the Marine Corps after World War II, and an extended hospital stay, I got married, sold life insurance in Arvada, Colorado, and was asked to run for the City Council. I put a speaker on my car, and then cruised the town, saying, loudly, “We just won a war, so we could govern ourselves. You should register to vote, and then vote for the candidates you think should best govern our city.” I lost the election by 32 votes, but 45 of the people I knew, then called me to say, “I didn’t know it was going to be this close, or I would have registered and voted for you.”
I dislike the negative ads seen on TV from both political sides of our neighboring city, and I wish Churubusco High School had won their last football game! I am glad we live here, and I am proud of our farming neighbors, and our excellent weather, and I know next year will be an even more excellent gardening year. by Bob Smith Hi there. I just suddenly realized that my last gardening column was written in July of 2011, and I stated that I was going to have some hospital time coming up. Judy has said I was in a lot of pain, and needed the surgery on my back, but – naturally, I don’t remember having any pain back then – but now that my spine has been fused – requiring about a six month recovery time to get back to my full gardening health! I recommend to you that when spinal fusion is offered to you, you exhaust all other alternatives! I was fused on August 23, I am now well into my third month of recovery, and I am still relying on my good friend, Kevin Pequinot, whom I hired while healthy, to help me keep up with my beloved gardening labors. I thank my lucky stars he hasn’t left my needy side, and I think I will be ready to get back to my own gardening next spring.
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Wednesday, 24 August 2011 9:42 |
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by Bob Smith
Hi there.
I got sick of the back pain, and decided to have my back fixed - so I took time off from writing gardening stuff. Then my operation - but not the pain -was postponed until this week. Last week I spoke to the "Pheresis” (a Greek word, meaning taking from the blood) donors, at the annual dinner given by the Fort Wayne Red Cross, to about 580 donors annually, and I prepared and gave this, which I would like to share with you. The winner of the Crocus bulbs, which have not been delivered to me yet, was decided to be Bob Egolf, of EGOLF'S I.G.A. store, whom most of you know, respect, and appreciate.
Good Afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen,
My name is Bob Smith, although my favorite nurse at Parkview Whitley calls me “LOUD BOB.” I grew up in Pennsylvania, on a small family farm. We didn’t have electricity delivered to our house until the mid 1930’s. My mother had met my father when they were both students, attending Cornell. She was a nurse. My Dad loved, and was good at, farming, with a team of horses and horse drawn tools. We didn’t have electricity delivered to our house until the mid 1930’s.
His father’s last name was Dunshee, and he was born in Scotland, but when Dad’s parents died in New York State, he was raised by his grandparents, and Dad changed his last name to theirs to honor them. I remember riding to town and then back in the early 1930’s, in our wagon, pulled by our own team of horses, to buy a new walking plow, that cost $6.00 – less than a good garden hoe costs, today.
He was proud of his Scotch ancestry, as am I, and always tried to help neighbors and church members who needed help. When Judy came into my life, she had already donated about a barrel of blood to the Red Cross in Michigan, and we soon started donating blood at a church in Columbia City. One day Alice Stiffner, one of the most caring people we know, and who many of you know, came to the church, informing about, and recruiting, Pheresis donors. When we learned we could donate more frequently, almost certainly helping more people, we started donating platelets, and we think it is a grand service to perform, and a great gift to give.
I was, and still am, big for my age. When I graduated from high school, I was valedictorian of my class, but I must also tell you that it was a small school, and I was the only graduate that year. I graduated from Cornell, have been a government economist, and a professional wrestler. Before one match, in Minot, North Dakota, I was sharing a dressing room with another wrestler, from Turkey, who spoke English with a strong accent. He said, “Dey tol’ me you work guvmint! Dat true, you work guvmint?” I said, “Yes, I do, I am an agricultural economist.”
He said, “Vot choo make, work govmint?” I said, “$5,265”. He said, “A MONTH? Dat not BAD”! That ended our conversation.
I have been a Marine – I was too big to enlist as a 17- year-old, but the recruiter told me I could go up three long flights of stairs in the Wichita Post Office, go into the Draft Board, tell them I was 18 today and volunteer to be drafted, and he would see that I got into the Marines. I did as he said, but when the Draft Board lady asked when I was born, all I could answer, was “18 years ago today!” And it worked - I was drafted, bussed to Fort Leavenworth, went through several examination lines, until one doctor, while measuring me, said, “Are you that kid that wants to get into the Marines?” I said, “Sir, I am no kid – I have been drafted, but I do want to be a Marine!”
Fortunately, the Marine infantry management did not like big guys in tight combat positions, because they are too easy a target to shoot at, and too difficult, if shot, to get to a hospital! So I spent my time cooking and driving ambulances, and never killed, fired a shot at, nor even drove over, an enemy. After World War II, I completed my Cornell days, then failed at many jobs, finally declaring, “If you want me to be a failure, I will become the biggest failure that ever lived.” But I even failed at that, as well! Judy has a much higher platelet count than I, and I have only one good vein in my left arm, so she usually donates double or triple donations to my one single, and I only get one band aid and one elastic arm wrap! But we enjoy donating, the Red Cross Staff Members, and the many other donors.
I have enjoyed my life, and donating platelets is one of the things both Judy and I enjoy a lot. Since I am both Scotch and an economist, I would like to point out to you, in case you don’t realize, REMEMBER!! – we are treated like royalty, welcomed warmly, given food and drink after donating, given a banquet like this annually, with great entertainment – all without paying a cent – and not even having to leave a tip!
I hope you will all share the pleasures you get from donating platelets with your friends, and maybe arrange their first donation with your next one, and offer them a ride with you to your next, and - their first donation. by Bob Smith Hi there. I got sick of the back pain, and decided to have my back fixed - so I took time off from writing gardening stuff. Then my operation - but not the pain -was postponed until this week. Last week I spoke to the "Pheresis” (a Greek word, meaning taking from the blood) donors, at the annual dinner given by the Fort Wayne Red Cross, to about 580 donors annually, and I prepared and gave this, which I would like to share with you. The winner of the Crocus bulbs, which have not been delivered to me yet, was decided to be Bob Egolf, of EGOLF'S I.G.A. store, whom most of you know, respect, and appreciate.
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Tuesday, 12 July 2011 5:49 |
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by Bob Smith
Hi there.
We are really having a sunny, hot start of summer, aren’t we! There have been terrible floods and fires going on for long periods around the country, but our area’s farm fields and gardens seem to be doing fine. We are anxiously and eagerly waiting for our first ripe red tomato sandwich, and we hope to have a good tomato canning season. Summer is wonderful for gardening, but it is more enjoyable at about 75 or 80 degrees.
I hope you remember that I ordered more Crocus bulbs than I planned to plant, and I would like to have a contest to award the writer of the best letter written to this paper by August 11, my birthday. Crocus are usually the first blossom to appear as winter leaves, the bulbs are usually planted in mid August for the following spring’s blossom time to occur. I would like the letters to discuss gardening, or Churubusco, or good neighbors you have known, or your youth on a farm with a garden . Write a Letter to the Editor by August 1. I would like permission to print the winner’s letter in this paper, and I know that Crocuses will brighten your property for years to come.
The Editor will provide the judging, the winner’s letter will appear in the paper, and I (or Judy) will mail the Crocus bulbs to the selected winner, because I hopefully will have an operation on my spine by then, and I have been told the operation to properly align and secure my wandering vertebrae, and the recovery may be difficult. We have met the surgeon Dr. Willyard recommended, and we really like him, and Orthopedics Northeast, where he works. Both Judy and I have several assorted joints that have been successfully replaced by surgeons who work there.
My hip problem is caused by Spondylolisthesis/Retrolist-esis (the expert nurses told me they have to say it fast!), but I can neither pronounce it nor type it without expert medical personnel helping. It is apparently caused by a large amount of bone being removed during a long ago operation, that has gotten tired of staying in position, and seems to enjoy scraping into the nerves that go from my right leg to my brain. I use a cane mostly, my back and right leg are very painful, and I often use (then forget where I left it!)
Bending over is almost as painful as getting up, and if Judy didn’t live here, we would be buried in weeds by fall. Bending over should be almost pleasurable (at least when you arise!) to accomplish gardening. I find it difficult to even think while sitting up, and I deeply regret that I have decided to take a vacation until I can garden, and write more interestingly about gardening, and I don’t think it will be too long - although time is passing very slowly and painfully until then.
Growing plants need about one inch of water per week. Our rainfall this year, as usual, is not exactly providing that every week. There are information sites available that will tell you in general about how much rainfall hit our area, there are rain gauges you can purchase, that remain accurate only if you check and empty them regularly, or you can place an open topped can or other waterproof container where you can easily observe and empty it daily.
Of course, removing unwanted weeds from your garden area requires some regularity, some knowledge, and some work – but it results in wonderful exercise and food – and our Heirloom Brandywine tomatoes will soon be ripe and ready for sandwiches, salads, and canning. I leave you with great anticipation! Good gardening . . . by Bob Smith Hi there. We are really having a sunny, hot start of summer, aren’t we! There have been terrible floods and fires going on for long periods around the country, but our area’s farm fields and gardens seem to be doing fine. We are anxiously and eagerly waiting for our first ripe red tomato sandwich, and we hope to have a good tomato canning season. Summer is wonderful for gardening, but it is more enjoyable at about 75 or 80 degrees.
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Wednesday, 06 July 2011 4:06 |
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by Bob Smith
Hi there.
Although we all have a general concept of what a weed is, it is sometimes hard to determine whether a particular plant is a weed or not. Some crop plants may become weeds when they appear where they are not wanted. On the other hand, a number of plants usually thought of as weeds may actually be useful under some conditions, or in some areas. They may help to control soil erosion, or may serve as foods for desired wild birds and animals, when planted in the right place.
With these points in mind, we can define a WEED as a plant, not intentionally sown; whose undesirable traits outweigh its good points. This definition eliminates the many plants – often native – that grow, uncultivated in any locality, but seldom have “weedy tendencies.” They are not aggressive enough to be troublesome in cropland or pasture. Since they do not interfere with agricultural production, they may be allowed to grow undisturbed. In fact, many of these plants have such interesting habits that they are well-worth preserving.
Milkweed, is an agricultural weed that we allow limited space to grow in, since the Monarch Butterfly, that winters in a mountain area of Southern Mexico, is allowed to grow in Judy’s flower gardens, because some beautiful Monarchs lay their eggs on our milkweed – during the annual summer migration from Southern Mexico to, and beyond this area and over the Great Lakes into Canada. Their annual journey lasts through five generations of beautiful Monarch life, and we admire them. We do try to cut off the flowers before seeds are produced, they also multiply by root growth.
Weeds reduce crop (flower, or vegetable) yields by depriving our beloved crops of water, light, and soil nutrients they need. If weeds are present at crop maturity, they may cause harvesting problems. Weeds often serve as hosts for crop diseases, and they may provide a place for insects attacking crop plants to over-winter. Some weeds detract from the quality of crops and of animal products.
Wild garlic, for example, reduces the value of wheat, and taints the milk of cows that graze it. Farm animals may become ill, and sometimes die from eating poisonous weeds. Thousands of people who suffer from hay fever can attest to the annoyance caused by the pollen from many plants, especially ragweed. Gardeners detest weeds because they are not what the gardener wants to grow in that area, they are ugly, they don’t grow in neat rows, and they don’t taste good – regardless of how prepared!
If you are new to gardening, how do you know which plants are weeds, and which are those you planted and want to grow and prosper? Purchased seeds packets often have pictures of what the mature plant will look like. Your County Extension Office has available literature, advice, and knowledge, and public classes, available to you in person, by telephone call, Internet request, or by a personal visit, about any gardening question. www.plantright.org offers a lot of information on potentially invasive problem plants. If you use herbicides, always re-read and follow the instructions before each use!! Don’t harm nearby desired plants!!
Information about gardening is available to all residents, nearly always without charge. Local, State, and Federal taxes support the efforts of each Extension Office, and they are happy to provide information about gardening, farming, and healthy life styles to all. They welcome the opportunity to serve the public, and I applaud them, and am happy and proud to have worked with them. . . good gardening by Bob Smith Hi there. Although we all have a general concept of what a weed is, it is sometimes hard to determine whether a particular plant is a weed or not. Some crop plants may become weeds when they appear where they are not wanted. On the other hand, a number of plants usually thought of as weeds may actually be useful under some conditions, or in some areas. They may help to control soil erosion, or may serve as foods for desired wild birds and animals, when planted in the right place.
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