A Vegetable Barden in Tiffin
There is a vegetable garden, house and yard to behold a short distance from South Washington Street at 37 Gibson Street. Feast your eyes on a home where the owners have pride, the know-how, and the energy to have one of the notable gardens in Tiffin. Max and Marie Dell live there.
His parents, Joe and Thelma Dell raised their family at 670 South Washington. They had several acres of land that bordered the south side of Gibson. Joe was county auditor. Thelma was from the country and had a love of gardening.
From one to two acres of garden, the family sold a lot of produce. The Food Service at Heidelberg was a big customer. Max remembers when the food service bought many bushels of green beans from them and canned them for wintertime use for their students.
Max and Marie are graduates of Calvert High School, class of 1946. They have lived in their present home at 37 Gibson for 52 years. Max retired about ten years ago as a meat cutter at Krogers after 43 years, and Marie worked for AAA. Max moved from 670 South Washington to 37 Gibson, a distance of perhaps 75 yards. Their house sits on the large garden site of Max’s family. They have a son, Jim, and two granddaughters. Marie says that when Jim comes home from Grosse Ile, Michigan, he goes out to look at the garden before he does anything else.
For their 60 by 60 foot garden, Max uses a Troybuilt Rototiller. That certainly takes care of a lot of weeding, and their garden is generally weed-free. In the spring, 12-12-12 fertilizer is worked into the ground. They have an overall plan for every row and plant type. A dust of Sevin is used to control insects.
Peas are planted in late March along with other early vegetables. They use Early Sunglow, the earliest of sweet corn. For later corn Max plants Bodacious, which he claims is the sweetest of all. There are about ten or twelve straight rows of corn, which provide plenty for freezing. Both yellow and green bunch beans provide them with beans throughout the growing season as they have staggered plantings of many of their crops. They grow big lima butterbeans and have harvested two bushels of them. After blanching, they go into the freezer.
Zucchini squash, cucumbers, beets, cauliflower, peppers and tomatoes provide welcome harvests. Their 20 tomato plants are staked, and it appears that they will produce plenty for all of Gibson Street. They plant Celebrity and Big Boy tomatoes. They usually can a hundred quarts of tomato juice. Lettuce and endive provide salad and greens. New Endive was just set out which will furnish greens generally through October. This past spring, they harvested 70 quarts of strawberries and most of them were preserved as freezer jelly. Extra fruit and vegetables are given away to friends and neighbors.
Max tells that they grew peanuts for their son to show and tell. His fellow classmates were amazed to learn that the peanut fruit grew below ground. They also raised cotton for demonstration.
Apparently, Max does most of the heavy work in the garden. However, they are both involved in the collecting and processing. Marie is in charge of their beautiful flower beds that line one side of the driveway and other sites around the house. She grows petunias, marigolds, impatiens, snapdragons, sweet William, geraniums, blue and white early phlox, and abundant coral bells.
The yard is carefully tended, and the weedless lawn has a nice turf. I have always admired their garden as I walked past. Every row is arrow straight; weeds are nowhere to be seen; and they have bountiful crops. And I am not the only admirer. Marie says that many people get out of their cars to come over and see the garden.
It is never too early to interest young children in planting and caring for a small flower or vegetable garden. It is something they will savor the rest of their lives. Children are naturally curious and need some connecting with the soil and their environment and the beauty and bounty of the earth. They generally do not mind getting their hands in the soil.
– Percy