What will you do with your own or your neighbor’s children this summer?
Do you know an activity where they learn new things while contributing to you and their community at the same time?
Last fall, Suburban Living-Serving Fuquay-Varina published an article on Brie Arthur, our town’s nationally recognized author of The Foodscape Revolution and Gardening with Grains. Like the rest of us, COVID-19 has changed Brie’s plans, but for such a creative person, her changes are inspiring.
For the last five years, Brie’s enthusiasm has infected two of her neighbors, thirteen-year-old Aiden Delgatto and his ten-year-old sister, Abby. Recently, I learned that these two have been using their cloistered time to create foodscapes for their neighbors. I thought their work provided wonderful answers to my two opening questions, so Brie arranged with them and their mother, Christine, for me to include them in a Suburban Living interview.
When I asked Aiden, “What are the most important things you have learned about gardening?” he answered, “How to dig the hole and put the seeds in properly.”
His answer to what tools he uses for this surprised me. “A mattock,” he replied. Then, he not only retrieved one to show me, but also demonstrated a well-honed skill in using it. A few decades back I was taught the skill by a man in his sixties, who started to learn it when he was five. You do not lift it over your head and swing it with all your might. Rather, you let the tool do the work. Lift it up; drop it where you want; lift it up; drop it nearby. Aim to create a hole the size and shape that you need and respond properly to the material – dirt makes different shaped holes than tree roots. I was in my 40s when I learned that and here was a 13-year-old boy doing the job very nicely.
The fruits of his labor were right next door by the foundation of his family’s home. Instead of a row of weeds needing whacking every few weeks, there was a thin strip of garden surrounded by a short fence made of cattle wire.
“So, what do you plant in June?”
“Corn!” The kids shouted in unison, clearly their favorite. Brie continued, “It takes about three months to grow; the ground needs to be warm, about 60 degrees before you plant; and they need full sun. If you plant in June, you will miss the silkworms. Plant the seeds 10 inches apart and dot them around the landscape. They are beautiful plants; they draw the eye. Sunflowers are a great companion plant because they need the same conditions and grow together well.”
Potatoes are another favorite crop of the neighborhood foodscapers. “We already planted potatoes back in March, to harvest in June, but it’s OK to plant them anytime,” Aidan explained. Potatoes are “perennial” in the North Carolina climate, but prefer to grow through the mild seasons of spring and fall.
“Potatoes are a practical veggie to grow, and you can even plant them in containers,” Brie added.
I followed up, “Where did you start your garden?”
“We cut down shrubs and put compost on the new space. Then we planted broccoli and strawberries there to get started in the early spring while it was still cool.”
“Where did you get the plants?”
“We transplanted the strawberries from Brie’s yard and added them to all the foodscapes in the neighborhood,” Abby explained, as she was the one who dug them up and planted them.
Brie added, “Be sure to buy strawberries from a garden store. Wild strawberries are horribly invasive plants that spread by runners and are very difficult to get rid of.”
“How about blueberries?” I asked. (Personally, I am a bit of a blueberry nut—eat them almost every day.)
“We have added blueberries to the foodscapes. They are a beautiful, edible native plant that grows well here.”
Brie emphasized “native” to show the importance of avoiding plants from foreign ecosystems that are often invasive.
“I recommend 3-gallon plants as they will be large enough to set fruit the next season. If you plant them in June, they will have an abundant harvest next year. They need full sun and acid soil. You can condition the soil with pine bark. Make a 5-gallon hole, so you have enough room for the conditioner. Also, you need two different cultivars for cross pollination. ‘Powder Blue’ and ‘Titan’ are good varieties to plant with delicious fruit.”
Back to the kids, I wanted to know, “What’s the hardest part of gardening?”
Aiden replied, ticking off the chores, “Digging the holes, harvesting, putting compost down, and removing the sod.”
“What have you done recently?”
Aiden answered again. “We started putting gardens in across the neighborhood after online school started.”
“What did you plant?”
Abby replied, “Since we started in early April, we planted cool season veggies and cover crops. Then we sowed cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, squash, zucchini and watermelon for the summer.”
“Cover crops and soil improvement are important strategies for successful foodscaping,” Brie continued to explain. “We sow buckwheat and crimson clover for cover-crop rotations along with vegetables to provide natural fertility and reduce weed pressure and overall maintenance. We also plant peanuts as a cover crop by opening the shell and thumb the raw nut into the ground about an inch.”
Not being a gardener, “thumbing” a seed was new to me, but the kids quickly demonstrated pushing a seed down with their thumbs.
Brie explained, “Peanuts are a legume that will naturally fix nitrogen in the soil and thrive in the sandy soil of Fuquay.” Abby added, “Harvesting the peanuts in the fall is super fun!”
“What if the soil is clay?”
Brie answered, “You need to add at least two inches of quality compost over the clay. Then plant the seeds themselves (instead of using small starter plants) and allow the plants’ roots to act as a tiller. This is the fastest way to improve your soil. My favorite compost is Soil3—it is black magic!”
“How often do you water?”
“We water every day through the heat of the summer, when it’s not supposed to rain.”
“How do you keep dogs out?”
Brie answered, “We got some cattle wire from Tractor Supply. Aiden designed and cut the fence.”
“Does that work with rabbits?”
“Yes! And groundhogs and deer, but not cats!”
I asked Brie, “Do the kids ever get involved in your webinars or classes?”
“Aidan and Abby are a huge part of presentations. People get very inspired by seeing them take an active interest in growing food. They frequently come to local Wake County events to help me present, and often act as our information technology experts!”
“Abby, what do you think is the hardest part?”
“Watering, it is never ending when it gets hot out.”
Brie added, “People with irrigation systems may not have to water as often as we do, but there are drawbacks to a permanent watering system. For instance, drip irrigation is great for permanent landscape features like trees and shrubs. But it does not work well for foodscapes because the entire ground plane is growing and changing. If you put in a system, you need to be careful. Gardening is active. For a typical landscape, you install it and leave. But for a foodscape, you bring vegetables into the landscape and change locations from year to year. Also, for a foodscape you need to have more sun, which means fewer trees.”
“What does the pandemic have to do with the foodscape revolution?”
“It brings it to the neighborhood level. We may have a food shortage. The kids are helping to connect with their neighbors while showing them how fun and easy it is to grow food.”
“How long does it take to make your own foodscape?”
“Not long,” Aiden said.
Brie gave the details. “We have spent about 2 hours installing each one, including time talking with the homeowners to understand what they want to grow and harvest—all with social distancing, of course. We look for sunny, open areas in their existing landscapes. Then we bring in good compost and layer it thick to ensure the veggies will thrive. The kids ask what food the owners like to eat and that is what we plant.
“Aidan and Abby are foodscape experts with 5 years of experience already in their short lives. It is cool to watch them teach the adults! Ultimately foodscaping is a way to make gardening simpler. And we get a lot of food. Right from our landscapes as a result.”
The whole idea of learning while creating for ourselves and contributing to our community is a great lesson for all of us, whatever our ages be.
