An Amazing Master Gardeners’ Garden

There are gardens and there are gardens. Fern and Cleve Campbell, long time Piedmont Master Gardeners, have developed amazing edible and ornamental gardens on their property that are a testament to the beauty of native ecologies and the effectiveness of the latest regenerative agriculture techniques. They have been kind enough to agree to take Garden Shed readers on an enlightening historical tour of how they have done it.

How It All Started

Both Fern and Cleve grew up in gardening families, doing garden chores and nibbling veggies off the vine at very young ages. Fern’s mom was also a canner and got Fern interested in food preservation when she was a little girl. They kept their early training going from the start of their marriage. Living in a cottage on a larger estate, they convinced their landlord to allow them to till a small vegetable garden in exchange for planting her an asparagus bed. They started their plants from seed, using a light borrowed from their fish aquarium, and remember buying a chest freezer as one of their first “furniture” purchases.

When they moved to their current property in 1985 it had no vegetable garden. During their first year there, they established an herb garden near the back door and enlisted a neighbor with a tractor to help clear an area for a garden planned for the next spring. That space became the current “upper garden.” Fern claims that they canned 50 quarts of whole tomatoes and 56 quarts of tomato juice during the early years.  She proved this by checking the records in her Garden Journal. Talk about following best practices!

How It Has Developed

The upper garden (featured photo above) measures just shy of 5,000 square feet, a big plot for most home gardeners. It includes many rows and wide beds, as well as two rows of asparagus, each 38 feet long, and a 38-foot-long raised bed which they cover with shade cloth for summer lettuce, and with clear plastic for winter greens.

But Fern and Cleve felt they needed more garden space for melons and potatoes, so in 1988, they started the “lower garden.” This plot has expanded over the years and now measures another 10,000+ square feet. (I had to see it to believe it!)

In the mid-90s they planted a 1400 square-foot “fruit garden” where they grow strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries. Disease took some of the plants over the years so they removed the sick plants, covered the soil with compost and leaves for three years and replanted this year.

Building the Soil Has Been Key

The soil on their land was originally compacted red clay and included some wet areas that were slow to dry, delaying spring planting. Ahead of their time, the Campbells added compost, leaves and straw to build organic matter and loosen the soil. Their practice until a couple of years ago was to bring in truckloads of partially decomposed leaves from a local commercial composter and mulch their beds after planting in the spring, and then tilling it into the soil the following spring. In addition, they added compost to the holes when planting. The result was a steady conversion of their red clay into the rich, black loam we all dream about. Since they can’t get the leaf product anymore, they have turned to straw as their main mulch, which they add generously, six inches thick, and are satisfied with this result as well.

 

Till or No-Till

From the mid-1980s until 2016, the Campbells mulched in the fall to protect their soil and tilled the gardens every spring. They started hearing about cover cropping and “no-till” in 2012 and 2013 when Cleve and Fern respectively, took the Extension Master Gardener training course. They started cover cropping, but thinking that no-till was for the big farmer, they kept tilling. However, the information supporting the benefits of no-till was hard to ignore. Finally, a wet spring in 2016 that made tilling impossible, convinced them to give no-till a try.

Despite feeling the need to till to kill surface weeds and fluff up the soil, they recognized that tilling breaks down soil texture and structure, can bring dormant buried weed seeds to the surface, and actually leads to more compaction and runoff over the course of the growing season. In addition, tilling harms the soil life (bacteria, fungi, protozoans, invertebrates, etc.) that makes soil nutrients accessible to plants, and its resulting aeration causes a surge of immediate fertility at the expense of long-term reserves.

So, in 2016 they trimmed a cereal rye cover crop to the ground, let it rest for two weeks, and planted directly in holes, rows, or whatever the crop demanded. They have been no-till ever since.

What They’ve Learned

The Campbell philosophy today places soil health at the top of the priority list. The key elements include:

• The soil should be covered at all times. Coverage can be organic mulch, including when crops are growing, or a cover crop.
• If mulch is used, it should be 6-8 inches thick and left in place over winter. Chopped leaves, straw, and compost are all good mulches. Compost can be integrated into the soil in the spring with a broadfork. Alternatively, leaves and straw can simply be parted to dig a row or planting hole and left in place during the season to conserve moisture and control weeds.
• Cover crops are the best choice to protect soil over the winter and on inactive plots during the growing season. The live roots reduce erosion, suppress weeds, improve water infiltration, and add organic matter to the soil, feeding the soil life that converts it to plant-available nutrients. Best time to cut cover crops is after flowering but before seed setting. Cut them as close to the ground as possible, and let the roots and crowns start to decompose for 10 to 14 days before planting right into the soil surface. After planting tomatoes, peppers, etc. or when other vegetable seeds such as beans have sprouted, add 3-6 inches of straw or leaf mulch to minimize weeds.  Their preferred cover crops are buckwheat and sorghum-sudangrass in the summer and a mix of forage radish, crimson clover, and annual ryegrass over the winter.
• If soil loosening is needed, use a broadfork or similar tool. Drive it into the soil as deeply as possible, and rock it back and forth to loosen without damaging the structure. Let plant roots and soil life aerate the soil over time.

Over the past few years, the Campbells have become convinced that a no-till garden requires less labor, weeding, watering, and digging than a conventionally-tilled plot. They recommend selling the tiller and replacing it with a broad fork.

What They Grow Now

The current crop roster includes over 40 varieties of tomatoes, hot and sweet peppers (a mix of heirloom and hybrids), and Kennebec, Red Pontiac, and Yukon Gold potatoes. Sweet potatoes and butternut squash are grown in alternate years, due to space requirements.  They also grow various types of yellow and zucchini squash, a variety of cucumbers, sweet corn, jade green beans, lima beans, edamame, okra, tomatillos, eggplant, peas, artichokes, carrots, candy onions, bulb fennel, melons (both watermelon and cantaloupes) and ground cherry. Drying beans include black turtle, red kidney, pinto, and cannellini. Fall crops include broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, Asian cabbage, collards, kale, garlic, and shallots. Perennials/biennials include rhubarb and cutting celery. They like to try a new crop each year; this year it is sesame.

In addition, they grow strips of pollinator plants in the gardens, and just installed a new, mostly native, wildflower plot near the upper garden. These flowers plus inter-planted buckwheat attract beneficial wasps and other pollinators.

Pest Management

Their philosophy is to avoid pesticides and manage rather than eliminate pests, tolerating some damage. Specific practices include:

• Frequent scouting using the “squish, smack, and swat method”
• Using a jar of soapy water in which to drop Japanese beetles and harlequin beetles
• Using a row cover or application of Surround (a kaolin clay product) on eggplant, to prevent flea beetle infestations
• Laying boards on the ground beside squash plants to trap squash bugs, and stepping on them in the mornings
• Yellow sticky tape for cucumber beetles

Using garden produce

 The Campbells love fresh fruits and vegetables and harvest twelve months a year. They also can beets, a variety of peppers, pickling cucumbers, okra, fruit jams, jellies, whole tomatoes, tomato and vegetable juice, vegetable soup, roasted tomato-garlic-onion marinara sauce, and the famous Campbells’ salsa. They freeze corn, lima beans, and peas, preferring frozen to canned. They ferment sauerkraut and dehydrate a portion of several crops, including tomatoes, beans (black, red kidney, pinto, cannellini), and some fruits. While they eat some of their harvest, they generously donate to food banks and friends, and avidly campaign against food waste (I went home with a box of garlic, onions, marinara sauce and salsa after our interview).

The Ornamental Garden

 While the vegetable gardens are the most notable feature, ornamental plants are interspersed around this very attractive property. The photo above shows a pond garden they installed that provides a quiet, shaded spot to relax at the end of a day of gardening.

In the early years, the ornamental gardens were populated with the popular plants of the day. Recently however, they have been adding native plants almost exclusively. Favorites include butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa), aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium) and Christmas fern, all of which are deer-resistant.

Lessons learned

 Given their rich and very successful lifetimes of gardening experience, it makes sense to ask them for their best advice for both new and experienced gardeners.

For new gardeners:

• Start small, don’t get discouraged. Gardening is a learning process and is never perfect.
• Fern quotes an anonymous sage: “Gardening is medicine that does not need a prescription… and with no limit on dosage.”
• Keep a garden journal. Note:
  • What you planted where and when
  • First and last harvest dates
  • Varieties that were successes or failures
  • Pests… date when first seen
  • Weather conditions (including first and last frost dates)
  • Crop rotation
  • Food preservation amounts and inventory
• Find a mentor. Experienced gardeners love to give advice.
• There is a wealth of published information on sustainable gardening techniques. Take advantage of it. A suggested list is provided at the end of the article.

For all gardeners:

• Stay open to new methods. No-till, cover cropping, mulching and composting were not regular practices until fairly recently but they work and have a positive impact on the environment, soil health, and garden production.
• The trick to making no-till work is to cut the cover crop in the spring (as close to the ground as possible), to wait two weeks for the roots and crowns to soften and then plant into the surface. If compaction is an issue, use a broadfork to loosen the soil. Mulch after planting. It really works.
• Grow plants that are appropriate for our area and your site. Take advantage of a mix of heirlooms and hybrids that can help manage diseases and pests. Don’t get discouraged, stay at it.
• Create a diverse ecology on your property. Use organic amendments and fertilizers, and resist pesticides. Spend time in the garden, be observant. Manage pests, don’t try to eliminate them.

Where do they go from here?

As Fern and Cleve have gotten older the work involved in keeping up with such a large set of gardens has become a challenge, and at some point will be impossible. So they are trying to figure out how to downsize sensibly. However, as they said recently, downsizing  “is so incredibly hard after working so hard to amend the soil. ‘Therapy’ may be needed.”

In any case, we thank Fern and Cleve for sharing their knowledge, philosophy, and amazing gardens with us. It seems appropriate to close the story with one of their favorite quotes by Alfred Austin:

“The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.”

That pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it?

Suggested References:

• Grow Great Vegetables in Virginia, Ira Wallace of the Southern Seed Exchange
• The Timber Press Guide to Vegetable Gardening in the Southeast
• Low and No-Till Gardening, University of New Hampshire https://extension.unh.edu/blog/2020/10/low-no-till-gardening
• “Mulch is the key to no-till gardening,” https://extension.oregonstate.edu/news/mulch-key-no-till-gardens
• “No Till, Permanent Beds for Organic Vegetables,” Cornell .edu. https://smallfarms.cornell.edu/2016/01/no-till-permanent-beds
• Managing Cover Crops Profitably, 3rd edition, SARE Handbook Series, Book 9
• The Organic No-Till Farming Revolution for Small-Scale Farmers, Andrew Mefferd