Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Apple Seeds farm manager encourages gardeners to pay attention, plant abudantly
April is a good time to start planning a home garden. Whether you have a big yard or an apartment balcony, Apple Seeds Teaching Farm is here to help.
The main focus for the local teaching farm is connecting kids with where their food comes from and getting them excited to eat vegetables. To that aim, students in the area visit the two acre farm for Farm Lab Field Trips where they get to explore the land’s orchard, greenhouses and multiple gardens right next to Gulley Park in Fayetteville.
But adults seem just as interested as school children in learning about growing your own food or flowers. When Apple Seeds announced an April 13 Garden Foundation workshop with farm manager Paul Deer, the spots filled up in a matter of days with people eager to learn more about starting a home garden.
For those who didn’t snag a spot in the workshop, Deer offered some tips on how to start a home garden just as the temperature is starting to turn from wintry to spring this month.
First things first, Deer said: Evaluate the site by looking at the soil and tracking how much sunlight you get in the space where you want to grow. Then keep an eye on how rainfall affects your soil, too.
Some sites are more wet or dry depending on whether they’re elevated or not, he explained. While there are apps available to help you estimate the amount of sun and elevation, the best way to evaluate your site is to go outside and look.
“Part of it’s just going outside looking at it and getting your hands in the dirt, feeling the dirt,” Deer said. When it comes to soil quality, many worry about nutrients, but he said that home gardeners need to be aware of how tightly packed the soil is in the space where you want to grow.
“(For) soil quality, the most important thing you
need to check for is compaction,” he said, which is why many people till their gardens to make room for the plants. Think about a plant trying to establish roots in loose soil that you can stick your finger through verses growing through a brick.
Compaction and water are the two most important issues to getting your plants to grow, Deer said.
“Sometimes it’s hard to get a certain plant to grow, but something is going to grow in that spot.”
For those working with raised beds, you can use the old leaves and scraps from cleaning up the yard — and with all the wind lately, there is no shortage of tiny sticks and leaves lying around.
“I’ve seen a lot of people suggest putting old logs and wood chips in the bottom because if you’re filling it all (the way up) with compost or soil is gonna be very expensive,” he said. Instead, Deer suggests organic yard waste. “You can throw in a bunch of organic matter like old weeds … in the bottom. And then on the top layers, you want just a mix of compost and topsoil.”
Local nurseries are a good place to get topsoil, Deer said, but larger, big box stores like Lowe’s or Home Depot have soil that will work for raised beds too. He admitted that raised beds come with some challenges.
“Growing in the ground you have a lot more soil organisms living in the soil and they cycle nutrients better,” Deer said. “When you’re growing in a raised bed, you have to provide those nutrients yourself because there’s less worms and little nematodes and different things.
“It’s a little bit more of a controlled environment, which is very useful because there are fewer weeds and you have better control over improving the soil, but
sometimes plants need additional fertilizers like fish emulsion or pelleted chicken manure, feather meal or alfalfa meal, something like that.”
Deer suggests starting on the low end when adding fertilizers to the soil and watching your plants to see if they need more.
For container gardeners, he suggests planting herbs and salad greens because they don’t take up much space. Perennial herbs like mint or oregano require little upkeep.
“You can not water them for a week or two, and they’ll be fine,” he said. “You don’t have to replant them. They come back next year. If you have a pot, just plant three different things and then see what is happiest there.”
If the plants start to compete too much, transplant those into other pots.
In the workshop, Deer will cover how to improve soil and control weeds, as well as help people establish their goals when planning a home garden.
“A lot of people want different things,” he said. “Some people are wanting to have flowers, and then some people actually want to grow a lot of nutrient-dense food. One of the things I’d suggest people do is just plant abundantly and diversely because some things are gonna die.”
By planting more, you’ll be able to actually see your successes are less likely to be discouraged, he said. Overall, Deer hopes those attending the workshop leave inspired and ready to try growing their own crops or flowers.
“It’s so rewarding to become a part of the land and care for a place,” he said. “That’s when it becomes really fun. Just watching things grow and develop.”
Deer’s interest in gardening started with wanting to create a nice lawn at his sister’s house in North Little Rock. He laughs about it now.
“Now I’m not a huge fan of lawns,” he said. “I’d rather grow food or flowers.”
In his first raised beds, he grew carrots, radishes and kale. His broccoli didn’t make it.
As he finished his degree in computer science in 2020, he found himself thinking more about organic farming and less about technology during the lockdown. Inspired by his own garden, Deer went to the website WWOFF, (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms), which connects people to organic farms where they work on the farm in exchange for room and board. He found his way to Dripping Springs Garden in southwest Carroll County, where he spent two years learning about organic and sustainable farming about 50 miles away from where he now works in Fayetteville.
“Right now it’s planting season so we’re shaping up the beds, putting on compost, putting on our fertilizers, and then direct seeding and transplanting,” Deer said. Direct seeding means that the seeds are planted directly in the spot where they will grow, unlike transplants, where seeds are planted in a tray or smaller pots and grown indoors and then moved outside once the plant establishes itself.
“Transplants are great because you get more consistency than with direct seeding,” he said. Looking back, Deer wishes he would have done more transplanting in the days when he was figuring out how to grow and learning how to compost and take care of the soil.
The idea for the workshop is based on things that he wished he had known when starting out. Deer says he still has a lot to learn, but now has a lot to share.
For those who missed signing up for this workshop, Apple Seeds hosts open farm hours from 9 a.m. to noon each Saturday for people to come help out on the farm and ask questions about their own space. Deer also suggests talking to local gardening clubs if you’re facing some issues with your site.
For the younger gardeners, Apple Seeds will host summer camps for kids ages 7-12 this summer where kids learn about gardening, harvesting and cooking. Apple Seeds also offers service hours, a helpful option especially for high school students now that community service hours are required to graduate.
Even though Apple Seeds programming is mostly aimed at kids, they have two classes each year for adults and hope the enthusiasm catches on, said Communication Director Allison Reavis.
“We hope that trickles up to the parents, if kids are really excited about eating vegetables and asking their parents to get the vegetables they’ve tried at Apple Seeds, it’s making that community a healthy place,” Reavis said. “[Then] maybe they want to grow carrots at their house now that they’ve eaten one at Apple Seeds.”
“It’s amazing how they taste compared to what you’re used to at a store,” Deer added. “Our fresh carrots are so much sweeter.”
As of yet, there’s not a second Garden Foundations workshop planned, but Deer said he’d like to do another since April 13 filled up so quickly. Keep an eye on appleseedsnwa.org just in case.
Monica Hooper is a features writer and podcast host for the NWA and River Valley Democrat-Gazette. She loves sharing stories about artists, dancers, music makers and all sorts of interesting folks. Though she’s terrible at gardening, she loves to try anyway. She can be reached at mhooper@nwaonline.com.