A Cold Plate & A Slow Pace

Some Secrets of Southern Gardening aren't really secret

Evening Lessons in the Vegetable Garden

"Look, these are up where I put down a layer of hay. But not one. Not one single okra seed came up where the bare ground broils."

Momma can hear the frustration in my voice. It's something I'm working on - to be calm when she doesn't remember. We go for walks almost every evening. That means a very slow meander to the vegetable garden. It's not far but I have a chair for her at the gate.

She used to walk this with baskets of veggies in her arm. Probably more than once, with a hurt or crying little boy in her arms.

"Remember the time I stepped on a nail?" I ask.

She doesn't.

"You should have on shoes right now," she says. She has tricks for deflecting. I need to learn tricks too, tools for not getting agitated when she doesn't remember.

Working with the Southern Heat

It's not just evening walks that are slow. On the farm, we cannot stop gardening just because it's hot. So we follow the shade and we take it slow.

I want my crew to understand that work goes on in the heat for two reasons. First, there's work to be done. Some of these fellas haven't had jobs before; teaching work skills and ethics is part of my job.

Early mornings, we pull weeds and dig orders because that work is all out in the full sun field. About a week ago, I sowed the durn okra that only half germinated and this week we'll sow sunhemp.

What to seed in July and August in LowCountry gardens:

• Peppers

• Cucumbers

• Zinnia

• Cosmos

• Marigold

• Bush beans

The trick is keeping them from broiling in the sun with mulch and water. The payoff will be tremendous and quick. This is one of the core secrets of Southern gardening I explore in my new book.

Lessons in Compassion

The second reason for working through heat is that I want these young, suburban fellas to know that there are a lot of folks out there roofing, paving, and picking the watermellons we’ll all eat this 4th of July weekend. Those unseen folks we rely on don’t have the choices we do. We need to practice compassion.

I'm trying to teach while I'm trying to learn. We need lots of it this year when half the people in the country, people I know and love, voted for and support the thorough trashing of compassion that is being bullied through our government and society.

With these fellas, on this farm, we are more than a crew working because of circumstance. These fella has futures far from farm work. We're lucky in our lives. We talk about serious stuff.

Taking Cuttings in Summer

Here's a little video of us taking cuttings. Yep, you can take cuttings now too, and you don't need a greenhouse or anything too special. You can use sand, but we use Oasis propagation cubes because they are light enough for Momma to pick up, and they give us great success. We’re doing mums, perennial marigold, and yellow butterfly pea vine this week.

The Art of Southern Garden Visiting

There's one more thing that's not a secret at all, but a success of Southern gardening: Visiting.

I took a day and rode down to my friend's in south Georgia to see her farm and family. I couldn't quite find the front door of the farmhouse. One way, those big old garden spiders built a volley net under the oak trees to block me. Another way, a huge farm dog circles on a leash. He was smiling, but I'm cautious.

I got to carry a smiling baby around to see her record crepe myrtle tree, the craggy-skinned trunk big as a whiskey barrel and the outhouse that's now a tool shed. Her vegetable garden was overflowing with black eyed Susans. The baby smiled at plumeria fragrance and we breezed by the fruit orchard she nurtures with decaying logs at the base of each tree. I met her husband and their intern, who was struggling to learn to use a hammer (there's a skill to hammering that most teenagers just don't have - yet.)

We shared a plate of beautiful, crimson Georgia watermelon.

Cold Plates and Garden Success

Another day, my friend Nancy came over from Walterboro. Tom, Nancy, and I did a farm walk, and Momma made us a cold plate lunch.

I should be more accurate with my words of the title of this post. A cold plate—cucumber salad, sliced tomatoes with basil, potato salad, and deviled eggs (from the coop next door) isn't really a secret.

I'd say, a cold plate from our own garden, fixed by my own Momma, is a success.

---

In my new book, you’ll learn to work with our climate for landscape success, which trees and where to plant for shade, and how to enjoy plants through the heat. There’s nothing fast in Secrets of Southern Gardening — including getting it.

We don’t do amazon, so you can pre-order now and it will come just when you need to escape the heat of August. Pre-Order here. Or come to a presentation. We’ll be in NC, SC, and GA in August, September, and October. Click to see the schedule.