An Interview WithThe Wyman Mc-
Cain FamilyBY BRENDA K. JOHNSONP&D Consultant
Q: What are vegetable gar-dening methods you havelearned?
A: Wyman McCain and hisdaughter Shelley Sukup and hiscollege granddaughter CharlieSukup and other family membersoperate a large produce gardenin rural Crofton Nebraska.
Wyman grows a variety ofsweet and hot peppers. “I buytransplants rather than growingthem from seed.” He fashionspepper cages from sheep fencingto support the peppers and keepstems from breaking the wind. “Itrim the base leaves of the pep-per plant. I have found thatpesky beetles don’t like sun-light.” He eliminates the shade ofthe lowest leaves also, whichsometimes touch the ground andbecome conduit for disease.
Mites are common in a sum-mer garden. Wyman checksplants that are susceptible tomites. As a preventative or firstsign of them, he sprays plantswith a dish detergent solution asan “insecticidal soap.”
Cucumbers are susceptible towilt from the cucumber beetle. “Itrellis the vines for air movementbetween the vines, to get themoff the ground for pests, and foreasy picking.”
One way they deter weeds insquash and pumpkins is to add ablack plastic runner down eitherside of the plant and parallel tothe rows. “Vines grow onto theplastic and fruit is protectedfrom laying on the ground. It’seasy to keep them in place asthey grow so the vines aren’tdamaged when you move them.I’ve also tried cedar wood chips.Cedar has an oil that may deterweed seeds and insect move-ment.”
Charlie Sukup attends North-east Community College in Nor-folk and is an active gardener.
“Tomatoes need heat stress toproduce better,” Charlie said.From mid May to early June istheir usual planting time fortomatoes. However, last June10th, a tornado touched down ontheir garden, and their focus wastemporarily diverted to straight-ening corn and clean up of shel-terbelt trees. But they continuedgardening.
“With each tomato plant, weput a teaspoon of Epsom salts,which adds magnesium,” Charliesaid. “For cutworms, we put atube of newspaper to protect thestem. We cut off the lower plantstems that may touch the
ground, and clip diseased leaves.We water in the morning, beingcareful not to splash onto theplant, which prevents disease.We like the soaker hose to re-duce splash. Because tomatoesneed heat stress to produce, wedon’t put mulch around theplants.”
Wyman lays black plastic orlandscape fabric around toma-toes to attract heat to the soiland prevent weeds, instead ofthe soybean stubble in most ofthe garden. Cages keep tomatoplants off the ground.
Shelly Sukup works in Yank-ton and is also an active gar-dener and food preserver.“Health Kick is our favoritetomato for salsa,” Shelley says.“Rutgers heirloom has the flavor.Brandywine flowers quickly, butyou need to keep them picked.Celebrity is the hybrid that is souniform and tough-skinned formarketing. We like Lemon Boyand Golden Girl for their lowacid. Last year we tried Pineap-ple heirloom tomatoes.”
Wyman commented on thecontinuing rain last August thatincreased fungal blight problemsin their garden. “We harvestedtomatoes quick and fast lastyear,” Wyman said. “’Health Kick’tomatoes, though a favorite,were quite affected by blight.” Henoticed that volunteer tomatoplants in different parts of thegarden were not as affected asthose in the tomato section. Hewondered if second generationplants in the same soil are possi-bly better adapted and perhapsmore resistant to blight.
An Interview WithDale And Rena
HebdaBY BRENDA K JOHNSONP&D Correspondent
Share your tips, give us a tour of yourplant site, or send your questions related tooutdoor or indoor plants to [email protected] Attn: Brenda Johnson or write toP&D, 319 Walnut St, Yankton, SD 57078,Attn: Brenda Johnson.
Q: How did you harvest in-ground spinach this March inSouth Dakota?
A: Extending both ends of thegrowing season without a hugeheating bill is the challenge Renaand Dale Hebda tackled on theirMission Hill vegetable and fruitfarm. They own Hebda FamilyProduce.
“On March 18th we harvestedour first crop of spinach,” Dalesaid, “and we anticipate anothercutting a week later. As theweather warms, it speeds thecycle.” Hebdas used passivesolar energy for heat and light togrow this crop.
“At the March VermillionFarmers Market, we sold 9pounds of spinach in less than anhour. We hope the public willbegin to anticipate our earlyfresh greens,” Rena said. Andthat’s not all. “Late this fall, weplan to offer fresh greens such asspinach, lettuce, kale, and col-lards.” One way they addedgrowing months, earlier in springand later in fall, is their hoophouse.
HOOP HOUSE TRIALSThe 30’x50’ metal-framed
structure covered in plastic, re-sembles a greenhouse with en-trances on either end and withenough interior space to accom-modate a tractor or other equip-ment. Unlike a greenhouse, crops
are planted directly in theground.
“This high tunnel has year-round potential in South Dakota,”Rena said. “It’s not externallyheated, but uses passive solarenergy.” Because hoop houseswere a new idea for SouthDakota, Hebdas needed to seehow it worked in their growingzone and on their site.
“Our first crop (in the hoophouse) was last fall,” Dale said.“We chose varieties to find outwhat would grow and how longinto maturity we could get themwith our fall and winter weather.In September we planted lettuce,radishes, spinach, beets, toma-toes, eggplant, peppers, and cu-cumber. We found out that thetomatoes, cucumber, and pep-pers needed earlier plantingtime, such as July.”
They kept track of tempera-tures in the hoop house throughthe fall and winter. “What wefound,” Dale said, “was that if wehad sunny days, and the air tem-perature dropped no lower than22 degrees in the tunnel, wecould grow lettuce, spinach andbeets. So if you have cloudy daysforecasted, you could decide ifyou needed to add (external)heat.”
“We found that spinach,beets, and radishes can be grownin our hoop house without extraheat,” Rena said. “For added in-sulation, we used a low tunnelcover (over produce) inside thehoop house.”
“We carried the spinach(planted in September) into win-ter with the tunnel inside the tun-nel without extra heat,” Dalesaid. That’s how they had theirearly spinach harvest ready inmid March.
“We’d be planting (this yearby late March) in the tunnel if theground wasn’t wet,” Dale said.
“We found we need to raisethe ground level of the movablehoop house soil about 6 or 8inches,” Rena said. This will help
drainage for growing in the earlyand late seasons.
HOME GARDENSEASON EXTENDERS
“Gardeners can extend theirseasons (Spring and Fall) withrow covers,” Rena said. “Whenplanting outside, you can make alow tunnel with row cover fabricover the top of some structure tohold the fabric off the growingplants.”
“Corn crib air tunnels work,”Dale said, “or something bent tomake a hoop. With row coverswe plan to have fresh tomatoesand cucumbers in late June.”
“We use plastic gallon milkjugs with bottoms cut off forplant protection in the spring.Rena leaves the caps off the jugsbecause “too much moisture ac-cumulates inside the jug and en-courages plant diseases.”
“We tried hot caps on eachplant,” Dale said. “You put soilaround each waxy paper domeframe to hold them down. Theywork except on windy days. Theyfly like kites. We picked them upa mile away.”
One way of extending the sea-son is to store produce forlongest shelf life at home. Hebdaproduce is fresh and local. “Pota-toes, squash, carrots, and onionsdo well to keep them at a con-stant cool temperature like aroot cellar,” Dale said.
Adequate moisture for refrig-erated items is another extender.“I stand asparagus in a ¼ cup ofwater in the refrigerator to keepit fresh,” Rena said.
A FAMILY BUSINESS“Here we don’t have to belong
to a health club,” Dale joked.Hebdas posed a real life problemfor their children. “We have threeyoung children ages 6-10 athome. They have the challengeto build and manage a cucumbertunnel. They have to decidewhere to put it so that it is out ofthe wind, near the wash station
and other factors.” Their work isrewarded when they weigh theirharvest.
Rena agreed, “We like to findways for the kids to be activelyinvolved and rewarded in age-ap-propriate ways. Sometimes theyhave decided to donate some oftheir produce to The Banquet orto a food table at church. Theynotice to see if their produce istaken; that someone needed thefood.”
“Being involved (in our familybusiness) teaches responsibility,money management, interactionwith people, and they learnabout fruits and vegetables andhow to grow them. Our 17-year-old Becca set up and managed avendor site in Vermillion inMarch. She was comfortable inVermillion, having taken classes
there. It was a new vendor loca-tion, but we knew she could han-dle it. Our son Steve, who is nowin Denver for automotive train-ing, has been there six monthsand is being given more responsi-bility, a reward for “work ethic.”
MARKETING PRODUCE INEXTENDED SEASONS
“We’re in our sixth year as afamily business and we workhard to develop a local customerbase that wants our produce,”Rena said. “We plan to offer pro-duce at the farm all season untilmid December this year. We ap-preciate loyal customers whothink of us, as our produce isavailable longer in the season.We will be at the local YanktonFarmer’s Market and have aweekly fresh vegetable delivery
program in Yankton. We also sellproduce at the Vermillion Farm-ers Market on Thursday eveningsand in Sioux Falls at Falls Park onSaturdays.”
“Our licensed commercialkitchen allows us to add valueand offer jams, jellies, pies, salsa,pickled cucumbers and beets, as-paragus and spaghetti sauce,along with produce and apples.Of course we’d like to open newmarkets with local schools andother institutions and restau-rants.”
“Fresh produce is personal forus,” Rena concluded. “In our fam-ily we know fresh produce tastesbetter. Our children are evidenceof that as they eat more varietyof vegetables and fruits.”
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PLANT EXCHANGE
If Only the Growing Season Lasted Longer
Damesrockets made the prairiefeel like home. Its dime-size fra-grant bluish-purple flowers clusternear the top with lance-like leavesbelow, on a stem over two feet tall.Damesrockets can be found atabandoned farm home sites andopen woods predominately in theCentral and Northern Great Plains.Not native plants, these escapedornamentals were among the firstflowers widely planted by early pi-oneers of the region. As with othermembers of the Mustard family, the
short-lived perennials producedlots of seed, and the plants oftenre-seeded themselves.
Today’s Damesrocket progenyare a reminder of their place in his-tory. Damesrocket seeds are some-times planted in roadside flowermixtures for spring display.Ground-foraging birds eat its seed.Its roots are shallow. The plant isnon-poisonous, and “is rarely pres-ent in large enough number to be aproblem” according to the sourceWeeds of the Great Plains.
PHOTO COURTESY OF DALE HEBDADale and Rena Hebda have trial grown an array of produce in their season-extending hoop house. Thebuilding is large enough to accommodate a tractor for the crops planted in soil within the structure. Sun-light and passive solar heat in the plastic hoop house are adequate to grow some crops commercially,but external watering is required.
BRENDA K. JOHNSONConcrete reinforcing wire, alsomade for plant cages, corralshand implements and containersfor natural treatments and lightsin a handy spot for workers at theend of the row.
What Are The Best Gardening Methods
BRENDA K. JOHNSONThis two-sided trellis is ready forcucumbers to climb. According toMcCain, the cucumber beetle isless likely to cause wilt with thevines off the ground.
DIBBLES AND BITS:
• More on hoop houses or high tunnels: Hoop house can be dif-ferent dimensions, but is often mobile so that it can be moved witha tractor or removed in sections for transport. Because you plantdirectly in the soil within the hoop house, mobility allows the hoophouse to move for crop rotation. If a cover for a different crop isneeded for a new season, such as tomatoes in the fall, the hoophouse may be moved. Ventilation can be as simple as open en-trance doors on the ends of the structure. External heat may beadded, but increases production costs. See MotherEarthNews.com,“Low Cost, Versatile Hoop Houses” for more information or yourlocal extension service.
• Perennial plants are thrifty: Plants you grow for color, shape,and texture that live several years, save money. While perennialsmay cost more than annuals at original purchase, a peony, chosenfor zone hardiness and planted in a favorable location, can returneach spring for fifty years. Other benefits of perennials include:year-round roots prevent erosion of soil. Roots retain water andfertilizer, which diminishes run-off pollution. In the April 2011 Na-tional Geographic, Robert Kunzig writes about corn breeders whocould develop perennial corn within this decade.
• Vegetable garden saves money: Gardeners surveyed nation-ally in 2011 by Garden Writers Association think so. About half thegardener respondents plan to put a 10 ft square garden in theirback yard this season. More than savings, they are motivated byquality, taste, and nutrition of their homegrown vegetables. Morethan half get their gardening ideas from other gardeners—anotherreason to read and share in Plant Exchange.
Y O U R N E W S ! T H E P R E S S & D A K O T A N
PLANTSAROUNDUS
BRENDA K. JOHNSONDaisy and Keith Halverson of Yankton have woods with drifts ofDamesrockets on their acreage west of town.
