Since writing my first column in October 2005 I have shared with you, my good readers, many a gardening tip, confession, aspiration, resolution, success story and utter failure in my garden. We live and learn from our mistakes. We gardeners love to swap stories and sometimes I learn as much from you as you do from me.
We gardeners are eternal optimists. Why else would we plant a tree, a seed or a garden?

With Guatemala and Honduras in the news I recall my trip there in 2007. On Utila, an island off the coast of Honduras, I noticed plants growing in washing machine baskets. I thought it was a clever way to re-use old appliances but wondered why there were so many old washing machines on a tiny island. A local laughed and told me the baskets protect their plants from the big blue crabs that come out at night. Seems the crabs will sever the stem right at ground level and drag the whole plant into their hole. Also the baskets protect the plants from the iguanas who will eat anything within two feet of the ground. And you thought deer, gophers and rabbits were a problem?

I lost my dog Sherman recently but one of my favorite anecdotes about him involved a wall and some buttermilk. The interlocking paver wall at my house in Bonny Doon stood out like a sore thumb and I wanted moss to grow over the concrete blocks like it did on the fieldstone retaining walls. I still remember looking back at the wall after painting on the moss/buttermilk mixture ala Martha Stewart’s instructions and seeing Sherman licking it all off. Even adding hot sauce to the mixture didn’t slow him down but I guess enough moss spores survived as the wall looked pretty good during the wet season before last year. Now I’m not so sure what survived on the wall since the fire but I’ll check on it next winter after the rains start – fingers crossed .

Like everybody else I didn’t go many places in 2020 during Covid times so I fondly remember my trip to Poland years ago. I did a lot of bird watching, hiking and punting. The gardens in eastern Poland were spectacular. The soil there, deposited by glaciers, is rich with sediment and nutrients. Sunflowers border neat plots of cabbage, beets, potatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and leeks. Black-eyed Susan cover the hillsides with swaths of gold blooms. Berries such as currants, blueberry, blackberry and raspberry are grown in large plots and fenced with wire. Every 10 feet or so plastic bags are attached and wave in the breeze. I was told this keeps the wild boar, roe and red deer at bay.
Sure looked funny, though.

This is my 800th column for The Press Banner. The first came about this way. I typed up a sample column and marched into the editor’s office. I’ve forgotten his name but little did I know that he had taken horticulture classes himself and so had a soft spot for my idea to write a weekly gardening column. Next thing I know he says he wants 5 columns, 400 words each, excluding prepositions, on his desk by Friday and the column would be called ‘The Mountain Gardener’ and not ‘Ask Jan’ which I had suggested. I knew my father who always encouraged me to write would be proud. I was now a newspaper columnist.