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I get a lot of gardening email and in March of this year I received about 7 emails complete with incredible photos from a fellow in Cresco, Iowa named Ernie Martin. Some of the email photos showed 23 inch tomatoes and his mom and dad cutting giant and I do mean giant cabbages with a large hack saw! His dad grew several cabbages that were over 60 pounds each.
Ernie says, “We thought we had a large tomato when we had some that were 21 inches, well take a look at he one that was 23 inches around and still green and on the
plant ! In the fall we collect over 16 TONS of dry leaves for our compost pile at
the farm.”
When I asked Ernie what they fed their plants he said, “What do we feed the plants? That is easy, first we start with our very rich deep black Iowa soil, and then we add compost and manure that has composted for 2 years. We use 16 TONS of dry leaves and about 8 tons of manure add water and 20 pounds of green sand for the micro nutrients just a dash of nitrogen, mix well and let stand for 2 years.
Ernie says, “I need to tell you more about our 16 TON compost pile. In the fall we go
into town and vacuum up people’s yards, for a fee, and then we take the leaves to
the farm to the compost pile. It is so funny, in the spring we have people call us and ask to BUY compost, and they buy back THEIR OWN leaves!! Great way to make some extra money!! Our dad helped us build a large vacuum unit we pull behind a awn mower, when that box is full we drive it over to the trailer, a 14 foot long flat bed we have put 5 foot sides on, we have another vacuum unit on the front of the trailer and we use it to suck up the pile of leaves we dumped out of the first unit. At the farm, we have ANOTHER vacuum unit we use to unload the trailer, from the vacuum unit they are blown into a leaf shredder and blown into a large pile. The 16 tons of leaves is mixed with about 6 tons of cow manure and 20 pounds of green sand for the micro nutrients throw some nitrogen onto the pile, add water and mix. Let it set for two years and you have great compost!”
He went on to say, “The tomato plans are 8 feet tall, each plant will have over 100 pounds of tomatoes on it. I start the tomatoes from seed. We like to plant Goliath
and we can not buy plants here so I start them. The family ran tests for 20 years to find out which tomato plant does the best here and we found it in the Goliath.”
Ernie says, “60 to 70 pound cabbage and even larger is normal and 60 pound Hubbard Squash, 10 to 15 pound Sweet Ma squash (if you like squash you must try the sweet ma) Last year we had a head of lettuce that was 40 pounds!”
The Walters live in north east Iowa which is in zone 4 and Ernie is the only person I know of that wishes global warming would get here because he wants to be in zone 5!
When he gave me permission to write about his family Ernie told me that dad is 95 years old and has his garden for 2008 all planned out.
Ernie says, “I have the tomatoes for this year started in our basement under grow lights.
We have tested different kinds of tomatoes for 20 years to find the ones that do the best here. The problem people have with tomatoes (here) is, they go to the garden center or the discount store and buy what ever they have. Well, they never have the ones that do the best here. We have found some that do great here and we do not have the problem with the blight that other people have. They have a bad problem with the blight and blossom end rot because they have planted the wrong kinds. Dad says " COMPOST IS AS GOOD AS GOLD " We use the front end loader at the farm, put compost on the
garden 12 inches thick ( 30.48 CM ) and till it in with our rotor tiller on the John Deer tractor 20 inches deep run by brother-in-law, Dick. As soon as the plants are large enough, we add another 6 inches (15.24 cm) between the plants and the rows. This is a big help in keeping the darn weeds down and helps to save on water. Then, next spring that with another 12 inches of compost is all tilled in, that is 18 inches or 45.72 cm of pure compost. We have been
adding that much compost for ten years now.”
As Ernie says, “The Walter Family lives in Cresco, Iowa and Cresco by the way is soooooo far from the closest TV station, we do not get the TODAY show....till tomorrow!! We are soooooo far back in the woods we have to pipe in daylight.”
Ernie told me, “I tried to keep notes so I can tell you a little about the photo... (Author’s Note all of Ernie’s photos can be seen on a copy of this article on my article website). First, my dad is 6 feet tall and you can see the plants are 2 feet taller than he is. We grow GOLIATH tomatoes here from seed. You can see how the tomatoes plants are full of tomatoes, each plant will have over 100 pounds of them.”
When I asked Ernie what they do with all this produce, he replied, “What do we do with it all? Good question, well for starters, mom and the family can and dry and freeze a lot of it. We make tomato juice, tomato sauce, salsa from the tomatoes and the peppers. We like to eat chili and it is great to have. So much of the work all ready done for us. So we use a lot but there are hundreds of pounds of tomatoes that we give away to other family and friends. For the cabbage, we make canned coleslaw that is just great and we have a root cellar where we can keep cabbage till Easter. We keep cabbage, carrots and potatoes down there with the home made wine. The squash does not keep fresh very long, we cut it in half, remove the seeds cut it into smaller pieces and bake it till done, cool it run it through a potatoes ricer to get the lumps out and freeze it.”
When I asked how big their garden was and who all worked in it, Ernie replied, “Yes the whole family works in the garden. I have a bad left knee and hip so I do not do much planting but I start all the seeds under the grow lights. We all help run the hoe through it before we put the compost down between the plants and the rows to keep the weeds from growing and when it is time to harvest we are all there to help pick, after all that is the fun part when we set up to do the hot water bath and pressure canning outside that keeps all that heat out of the kitchen.”
The Walter’s family consists of Mom (Ada), Dad (Ervin), Ernie, brother Lee, brother Larry, sisters Sandy and Peggy and Ernie says, “ The canning would not get done without the help of Sandy and Peggy.”
Ernie went on to tell me, “This year we want to try drying some vegetables. You might be thinking what do we do with all the hundreds of pounds of onions, well, they do keep for a long time and when we see they will not keep much longer, we run them through a food processor, put about one cup (I have no idea what you would call that amount) put it is small bags and freeze them. It is so handy to have your onion all ready for what ever we are going to cook, home made soup, chili or what ever. And the garlic, we sure use a lot of garlic! Dad says it is the red meat and garlic that keep him going for so long! The garlic will be the very first thing up after the snow is gone; I bet it will be up in just a few days.”
Ernie went on to say, “You might wonder what we use for our drying racks for the garlic and the onions. We had a grocery store that went out of business and they left their entire roll around bread racks out back of the store. We asked if we could buy them they said you can have them so we put them to good use. They are just right! They have the plastic racks that the bread used to be in and we put our garlic and onions on them and leave them sit outside as long as it will not rain. If it is going to rain we just roll them in the garage and back out the next day.”
Ernie says, “Dad says if you want to eat out of the garden you have to live in the garden. He is right, it does take a lot of time, but just think of the money we save and everything is fresh and we know how it was raised. We try to avoid the use of chemicals as much as we can. I don't know where your vegetables come from but here in the U. S. many of our vegetables come from Mexico. Here in the U. S. many years ago we outlawed the use of DDT, problem is, and Mexico never did that. So down there they can use it every day if they want to. That means we are STILL getting DDT on our vegetables, another reason to grow your own!”
As I said the Walters Family lives in Cresco, Iowa and Ernie says, “Cresco, by the way, is a real small town, only 2,500 people. We had a bad fire in our library the other day. BOTH books burned and one of them was not even colored in yet! All the homes in Cresco are so far apart, EACH house has its own tom cat!”
(Author’s Note all of Ernie’s photos can be seen on a copy of this article on my article website).
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Author Bio Box: Arlene Wright Correll
 For more gardening or cooking information click http://www.learn-america.com/
To see Arlene’s Gardens and to read her gardening diaries and to take a walk through her pictorial garden or click on Arlene’s Books where you can download or buy her gardening & cook books, including her new book, “The ABC’s of Wine and Beer Making”. Remember to check out her artwork, especially of her fruits and vegetables. Arlene says, “All my royalties from the sale of my books go to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and I thank you for visiting my site.”
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