Colorized transmission electron micrograph of Avian influenza A H5N1 viruses (seen in gold). Image provided by CDC/C. Goldsmith, J. Katz, and S. Zaki.

Home Gardening During the Pandemic

By Grattan Woodson, MD, FACP

An important food source that many can take advantage of during the pandemic period is a home garden. Gardening is a satisfying pursuit that anyone can learn to do. Urban residents will be surprised at how much they can produce with only a little bit of space, even in a container garden on a balcony. Having a small garden will provide your family with an important source of delicious and nutritious fresh vegetables. Whether you live in the city or the country you can grow quit a few healthy summer and winter vegetable that will be an important source of variety for the diet.

A pandemic period lasting 18 months will include three growing seasons. Depending on the starting date of the pandemic, there could be two winter seasons and one summer or vice versa. The point is there will be lots of time to plant and harvest multiple crops during the pandemic and having this food could be very important to your family and friends. Now is the time to start your garden if you donít already have one. The best gardens have been cultivated for few years but you will be very pleased with your initial results compared to the alternative of having no ready access to fresh vegetables.

A big community garden is something that can provide enough food for everyone in the neighborhood and the surplus can be traded or preserved by canning, dehydration, pickling or stored in a root cellar. If you live in a favorable area, consider this option.

While gardening takes time and can be hard work, it is also a peaceful and rewarding way to spend time. Many people love gardening for these reasons. It is really remarkably how relaxing and stress-reducing gardening can be and during the pandemic, we will need to take advantage of all the stress reducing activities we can. There are many people with these skills as gardening is a very popular hobby. Gardeners love to share their pastime with other people and most will be happy to teach those new to the subject how to do it.

Item	Nutrition	Preservation	Harvest/Comment
Easy to grow grapes and berries
Blue Berries	CHO, K	Dehydrate, preserves	July
Black Berries	CHO, K	Dehydrate, preserves	4^th of July
Scupernongs	CHO, K	Preserves	Labor day item. Great wine grape
CHO = carbohydrate, K = potassium

Extending the growing season

For suburban and rural homeowners in the temperate climates using homemade cold frames or greenhouses can extend the growing season year around. Cold frames can be made from old window frames or sheets of 4-mill clear plastic and 2’x4’lumber. Small greenhouses can be built cheaply covering a frame with 4-mil plastic sheeting. Frames can be cobbled together using 2’x4’ lumber or PVC pipe. Of course these inexpensive structures are temporary only but should last for three growing seasons, long enough to get you through the pandemic period. For a more presentable solution, these units can be purchased in kits that you assemble yourself. They come complete with everything you need.

Vegetable	Nutrients	Growing Difficulty	Preservation	Comments
Summer vegetables for the home garden I
Squash, Zucchini		2+	Can	Cut worms, squash bug
Pumpkin		2+	Root cellar, Can	Cut worms, squash bug
Sunflower	Fat, Protein	1+	Dehydration	Seeds must be removed from their shells
Okra	Fiber	1+	Can, pickle	Abundant producer, pick small
Spinach	Iron, Beta carotene	2+	Can	Can bolt if it gets warm. Pick often
Lettuce		2+	N/A	Can be finicky. With a cold frame you can grow Bib Lettuce almost year round below Latitude 35
Pole beans	CHO, Protein	2+	Can
Onions	Fiber	2+	Root cellar, dehydrate, can

Garden location

When it comes to where to locate the garden, this is one of those times to think outside the box. The pandemic will not last forever but it will go on for quite a while. Many choices we make during the pandemic will be guided by the exigencies of the emergency and would not be those we would normally make. Gardens need full sun to be the most productive. So, if the best place to locate the critically important vegetable garden is smack in the middle of an emerald green grass lawn of a fancy suburban home or on the roof of your apartment building, so be it. This is a temporary solution that will be reversed once the emergency ends. In addition to sunlight, other important things to consider when deciding where to put your garden are water, soil, and protecting the growing produce from animals and thieves.

Creating an urban container garden

A south facing patio or balcony that has abundant sunshine makes an excellent location for a garden grown in large containers. This technique is quite easy to get going and is a very effective way to grow vegetables in cities. The plants are grown in large 5-gallon plastic potting containers purchased at the garden center. You will need two large bags of potting soil for each container. Plant one nursery raised seedling in each pot. I suggest patio or cherry tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper, and squash to start out with. They will grow great and are big producers. Be sure to have a tray that goes under the container to catch any excess water. Once a month apply a small amount (2 tsp) of 10-10-10 fertilizer and lime to the growing plants. As your plants get bigger, they will need to be staked to keep them from falling over. Let the cucumber pour over the edge grown onto to patio. Other items that are easy to grow with this method include; radishes, herbs, sweet peas, pole beans, and cabbage.

Vegetable	Nutrients	Growing Difficulty	Preservation	Comments
Summer vegetables for the home garden II
Corn	CHO, Protein, & Fat, fiber	2+	Can, Dehydrate	Takes a lot of space but worth it if you have it. Pretty easy to grow
Pea, Sweet	CHO	1+	Can, Dehydrate	Peas grow up a chicken wire fence. Picking takes a little time.
Soybeans	CHO, Protein, Fat, K, fiber, flavinoids	2+	Dehydrate	The king of vegetables. A must have item. 1000 uses and highly nutritious. Weeding required
Potatoes, White	CHO	1+	Root cellar, can, dehydration	High carbohydrate content. Easy to grow. Harvest requires digging them up.
Potatoes, Sweet	CHO, Beta Carotene	1+	Root cellar, can, dehydration	As above plus great source of Beta Carotene.
Tomatoes	Vitamin C, K, licopenes	2+	Can, dehydration	Must be staked, some loss to animals, insects, and mold
Cucumber	K	1+	Pickle	Cut worms, squash bug.
Squash, Yellow	CHO	2+	Can	Cut worms, squash bug

Garden Design

A south facing garden spot with full sun exposure is ideal in the temperate northern hemisphere. It is important to have as many hours of full sun as you can manage with 6 hours being quite good.

Watering the garden

Other important considerations include the ease with which you can bring water to the garden because water service may be spotty during the pandemic. Consider recycling your gray water for the garden. Grey water is water used for washing and bathing. It is soapy and has some food and body scum in it but is just fine for plants. In fact, they love it!

Adding amendments to the soil

Most ground soils require adding amendments to improve their quality before planting. Amendments typically include sand, peat moss, 10-10-10 fertilizers, and dolomitc lime with different soils requiring different combinations of these. Clay soils need sand, peat moss, and lime. Loamy soils need lime. Most every soil can benefit from the application of fertilizers and organic material like peat moss. The best amendment is manure as it includes minerals, plant nutrients like nitrogen, and lots organics. Manure requires composing before it can be used because initially it is too rich and can burn plants.

Gardening in rectangular beds

Space permitting, one efficient garden layout is a series of 3-foot by 12-foot rectangles. The length of the rectangle can vary but you do not want to have the width exceed 3 feet because this makes it harder to weed and tend to the plants. Ideally, there should be 4 feet of space around each rectangular row to permit the movement of carts and people through the garden without difficulty. This also allows you access to all sides of the bed. A truly amazing quantity of high quality vegetables can be grown in these rectangular beds.

Raised rectangular beds

A variation on the rectangular bed theme for those who are planning a permanent garden is to construct raised beds. These have many advantages over gardening directly in the ground. Raised beds are simply made by building a rectangular form out of lumber and filling it with dirt.

How to build a 12’ x 12’ x 3’ wooden frame for a raised rectangular bed
Frames are easy to construct using 2’ x 12’ x 12í lumber, #16 nails, a handsaw, and hammer. To make two 12 foot x 3 foot raised bed frames, purchase five 12’ x 2’ x 12’ boards at the hardware store or lumbar yard. You will also need a box of 16-penny nails and a hammer. Ask the lumberman to cut one of the 12’ boards for you into four 3’ long segments or do it yourself. Carry to lumber to the location of your garden and lay out the wood in a rectangle. Have someone hold the 3’ and 12’ boards together with the longer side butting into the shorter side meaning that when looking at the end of the frame, the smaller board is on the outside. Nail them together making your first corner. Attach the third and fourth members of the frame with nails. Four well-hammered nails placed in each butt joint corners of the frame should serve you well.

How to build a 12’ x 12’ x 3’ wooden frame for a raised rectangular bed

Frames are easy to construct using 2’ x 12’ x 12í lumber, #16 nails, a handsaw, and hammer. To make two 12 foot x 3 foot raised bed frames, purchase five 12’ x 2’ x 12’ boards at the hardware store or lumbar yard. You will also need a box of 16-penny nails and a hammer. Ask the lumberman to cut one of the 12’ boards for you into four 3’ long segments or do it yourself. Carry to lumber to the location of your garden and lay out the wood in a rectangle. Have someone hold the 3’ and 12’ boards together with the longer side butting into the shorter side meaning that when looking at the end of the frame, the smaller board is on the outside. Nail them together making your first corner. Attach the third and fourth members of the frame with nails. Four well-hammered nails placed in each butt joint corners of the frame should serve you well.

Use stakes and string to lay your garden out

Using a tape measure, lay out your rectangular beds. Place a stake at each corner. Attach a string to the stakes around the perimeter of the bed. I recommend you consider spraying the bed at this point with a non-persistent herbicide like Roundup“. This kills all the grass and weeds growing in area sprayed after about 10 days. The Roundup deteriorates after 2 weeks. This option makes it easier to keep grass and weeds out of the garden later on.

Now clear the surface of the each bed of all debris and apply the amendments you plan to add to the soil. A garden tiller is a wonderful tool to use at this point but most folks will not have one. If you do, you know what to do. Many garden and hardware stores will rent you a garden tiller by the hour or day. If this option is available to you, by all means take advantage of it. If you donít have access to a tiller, grab your shovel and get to work.

If using a shovel, start digging at the edge of the row and dig as straight a line as you can using the string and stakes to guide you. Shoveling can be relaxing exercise if you don’t try to do it too fast or furiously, and especially too long. I like using a small shovel. It is easier to use than the big ones and gets the job done well. One method is to work with the shovel for 20 minutes then stop and do something else for a while then come back to the shovel. Turn the soil lifted with the shovel over on top of the amendments you spread on the surface of the row. Share the shoveling with others in your group.

Once the entire plot is turned over once, now add another layer of amendments on top of the soil. Using a hoe, shovel, or a cultivator break up the dirt clogs into smaller pieces. This is a task that is best done gradually and deliberately, as your results will depend to a large extent on how well you prepare the soil. Overdoing it results in a terrible backache, so take it easy. Once the clogs are broken up, using a rack or the hoe, remove as much vegetation debris and rocks as you can from the row. Now smooth the soil with the rake and you are ready to plant the bed.

Non-hybrid heirloom seeds make sense

The best seeds to use during a pandemic are non-hybrid seeds. A number of heirloom vegetables are available as non-hybrid seeds. These plants produce fruit that may not be as perfect as the hybrid varieties but they have several advantages. The seeds from the fruit the plants produce can be dried and replanted the next year producing the same high quality product year in and year out. The seeds from hybrid plants are genetically inferior to the parent plants and some wonít even germinate. Sees from hybrid plants can be used in a pinch but yields will be unreliable compared with the non-hybrid plants. Heirloom varieties have exceptional flavor and in some cases unique and attractive appearance compared to their cookie-cuter hybrids.

Vegetable	Nutrients	Growing Difficulty	Preservation	Comments
Easy to grow vegetables for the winter season
Cabbage	Fiber,	2+	Year round	Great winter vegetable
Carrots	Beta Carotene	3+	Root cellar and can	Rich well drained and deeply cultivated soil
Radish, red	Fiber	1+		Easy
Radish, white	Fiber	1+	Pickle	Easy but soil needs good cultivation
Spinach	Iron, Beta carotene	2+	Can	Can bolt if it gets warm. Pick often
Lettuce		2+	N/A	Can be finicky. With a cold frame you can grow Bib Lettuce almost year round below Latitude 35
Kale	Vitamin A, K		Cook fresh
Beets	CHO, fiber, vitamin A		Pickle, cook fresh	Beet greens are great in salads
Turnip greens and turnips	Vitamin A, K, fiber		Cook the greens fresh, store the turnips in a root cellar
Collard greens	Vitamin A, K, fiber		Eat fresh

Weed control

The best way to keep weeds under control is to use lots of mulch. Mulch is a substance like grass clippings, pine bark, or straw that covers the ground cutting the weeds off from the sun. Mulch also helps keep the moisture content of the soil higher by helping to prevent evaporation. Weeding by hand or hoe is most effective and not too much trouble if you do it regularly so that you get the little buggers when they are tiny weedlings instead of waiting until they are nearly up to your knees and have had a chance to burrow their roots deep into the soil.

Insect control

If you have a chance, load up on a safe insecticide for use with vegetables. There are a lot of choices. A pretty non-toxic approach that may work for you is mixing a little dish or laundry soap in water and spraying the bugs with it. This works on aphides and little insects best of all. You can also make a tobacco solution by boiling an ounce of tobacco in a quart of water. This is really toxic stuff, even to people. Decant the poison carefully into an opaque container to keep out the sunlight. Use 1 ounce of the solution to a quart of soapy water as a garden insecticide. It will kill most bugs. Wash it off quickly if it gets on your hands or in your eyes and keep it out of reach of children. Donít forget picking the little rascals off your veggies with your fingers. If you donít like squashing them with your fingers, carry a small jar of vinegar and drop them in it. It will dispatch them post haste. Remember that ladybugs and praying mantises are good insects that eat other bugs. We want to preserve them.

The Joy of Composting

All good gardeners love compost because its use significantly improves the soil composition and quality. Composting is the practice of using waste organic matter from the kitchen and yard to enrich the soil. Compost adds water-retaining carbon compounds and minerals to the soil that plants thrive on. It will probably be necessary for us to compose during the pandemic anyway since sanitation service is likely to be disrupted for prolonged periods.

There are many ways to compost waste materials. A simple method is to section off 6’ x3’ area with wire fencing and stakes leaving one side of the rectangle open. The food scraps and leavings together with yard clippings, leaves, or other not-woody vegetation is then dumped into the pile where nature takes over. It will be useful to make a chicken wire cover to place over the top of the pile to help keep unwanted guests from dining there late at night. It is necessary to turn the pile over from time to time to help aerate it. A pitchfork is best for this task. Water and air are both required for decomposition to occur. When adding new materials to the pile, it is a good idea to cover them with the decomposing materials already in the pile. This serves to aerate the pile and speeds the decomposition of the newly added material. Rotting of vegetation produces acid that can slow the process of decomposition and is countered by adding lime to the compost pile. Lime also helps to reduce unpleasant odors coming from the pile.

Avoid attracting unwanted visitors to your compose heap

An important problem to plan for when composting is varmint control. Rats, possums, dogs, and raccoons are notorious compost pile raiders. These critters, especially the rats can become a real nuisance and it is important that you do your best to keep them out of the pile. Rats live in colonies and if they get established in your yard, it wonít be long before they find their way into your warm house. An important composting rule is never dispose of meat, bones, or fat scraps in your pile. Doing so will result in unsanitary odors and unwanted guests visiting your compost pile. The best strategy for these is to bury them 2 or 3 feet underground. Add some quicklime to help with decomposition. These should be disposed of away from your compost pile. Placing a chicken wire cover over you pile can also help keep critters out of the pile.

Night soil

Night soil (human waste) is an excellent source of fertilizer for your garden but must be composed first before in can be used. Composting reduces the night soil into completely broken down elements rich in nitrogen, potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron, and a myriad of important trace elements. Do not add night soil to your regular compost heap. Locate a separate area for composting night soil that is away from your residence but near your present compost heap. Mix the night soil with some regular compost and dirt to speed its transformation. Keep the night soil covered. Add lime to the night soil to speed its decomposition and reduce odors. Since human waste can attract animals, cover the night soil pile with chicken wire to keep the varmints away. If you are not able to use your toilette anyway do to lack of water, consider putting your night soil to a useful purpose. Talk about recycling!

Herb	Nutrients	Growing Difficulty	Preservation	Comments
Essential easy to grow herbs
Garlic		1+	Root cellar, dehydrate	Perennial
Parsley	Beta carotene	2+	Dehydrate	Will grow or a season or two
Basal		2+	Dehydrate	Annual
Thyme		3+	Dehydrate	Perennial
Oregano		2+	Dehydrate	Will grow or a season or two
Rosemary		1+	Year round	Perennial

Preservation of Home Grown Fruits and Vegetables

Foods with high sugar contents will not keep for long even if stored in a root cellar at 50 to 60 degrees. These foods are best preserved by dehydration or canning. These topics are covered in detail in the Home Food Preservation section of the Resources area found on the www.bridflumanual.com website. I have stored several excellent review articles there published by nutritionists with the cooperative extension services from several leading Universities.

Carrots, cabbage, beets, onions, some varieties of apples and potatoes can be stored in a root cellar for prolonged periods. Some basements can be adapted to the role of root cellar. You can dig a root cellar if wish to but it is a big job and probably too much trouble for most folks.