Home gardening is an easy way to stay prepared

FAIRDEALING — The COVID-19 pandemic has put a lot of stress on people as they’ve had to deal with social distancing, isolation and shortages of commonly-used items. It also has taught valuable lessons about general preparedness and self sufficiency.

While many things have become hard to find on store shelves, food is something people can ensure they have enough of in difficult times, according to Jim Akers, 69, of Fairdealing, who grows a variety of vegetables and other things in his “victory garden” each summer.

The current pandemic situation, Akers said, is reminiscent of the early 1940s, when the United States was embroiled in a world war and food production was altered.

“Back in the second world war, everybody planted gardens and they called them victory gardens because everybody was working in the war effort,” Akers explained. “Canneries were not doing much, so everybody planted a little garden to help.”

Today, many factories have shifted production to personal protective equipment, and while most food items have remained readily available, many people have started to focus on growing their own.

“Everybody’s putting in gardens this year. I don’t know if they’re afraid of a shortage or what,” said Akers.

Home gardening is easy, Akers stressed, and doesn’t need a lot of space.

“You don’t even have to have a backyard. If you’ve got an apartment building with a balcony - any place where the sun shines - you can raise tomatoes and bell peppers and things you like,” he said.

Enough tomatoes can be grown in five-gallon buckets in a small area to feed a family all summer, according to Jim Akers.DAR/Paul Davis

Pointing to a small area in his yard no bigger than a small porch, with nine five-gallon buckets full of bell pepper and tomato plants, Akers said, it “will feed a family of four the whole summer.”

All you need, he said, is “a few buckets and potting soil.

“Bell peppers can be planted in a five-gallon bucket and they’ll last all summer.”

Bell peppers and other vegetables, Akers said, are easily grown in five-gallon buckets, which take up very little space.DAR/Paul Davis

He also grows squash and zucchini in buckets, noting “anything except climbing green beans you can plant in a bucket.”

Lettuce, Akers said, also is easy to grow.

“You can grow lettuce in any little small container. You can cut it every day and it will grow back many times,” Akers said.

Other food items are planted in raised boxes in prepared soil, including broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, strawberries, cucumbers, watermelons, eggplant, butternut squash, sweet peas, blackberries and blueberries.

Jim Akers shows a few of the strawberries he picks daily from his home garden, which he said can sustain a family of four for a long period of time.DAR/Paul Davis

“We’re picking two or three gallons of strawberries a day,” Akers said.

It’s important, Akers said, to plan ahead for your garden and buy the seeds or started plants you’ll need early.

He usually begins planting in March, keeping his vegetables indoors until the weather outside is warmer, but each plant is different.

“It depends on what it is,” Akers explained. “Tomatoes usually go outside in late April. Beans don’t get transferred outside until the first or second week of May, and sweet potatoes won’t go out until the first of June.”

Broccoli and cauliflower are considered cold-weather plants, “so freezing up won’t hurt them,” Akers said.

Daily watering, Akers stressed, is important to ensure your plants stay healthy and produce food, and removing weeds, which compete with the plants for soil nutrients, needs to be done regularly.

Growing your own vegetables, not only is easy, but Akers believes it’s also healthier than buying from a store.

“Local grown food is healthier,” he said. “Tomatoes that you buy in a store are picked green, shipped in trucks and then they start turning. They don’t taste anything like a home-grown tomato.”

Home-grown food also isn’t loaded with chemicals.

“It’s just better for you. You don’t have insecticides and herbicides,” he said. “You don’t don’t know where the stuff you buy in the store came from or how it was grown.”

Akers said he still washes his fruits and vegetables before eating them, but “it’s not going to hurt you because there are no chemicals used.”

While it is now generally too late in the year to start a new garden, Akers hopes others will consider doing so next year to stay prepared.

“When they find out how easy it is, I think a lot of people will start doing it next year,” he said.