Three Gardening Tips from Tennessee Gardeners

Here in Tennessee, master gardeners like Larry and Gerrie Currie and Susan Long have cultivated large, impressive gardens. Combined, the Curries have over 60 years of gardening experience in Memphis. In Knoxville, Susan Long has kept her garden for more than 35 years. They’ve shared 3 tips with AARP for the upcoming gardener.

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1.   Grow with your Garden

 “Start small,” Larry says to the first-time gardener. “Don’t try to go out and lay out no big 20x20 garden. Get a little 5x5. The next year, you might add a little more.”

“You can grow a tomato plant in a bucket,” he continues. “A five-gallon bucket. You can fill it up with dirt and put a tomato plant in it. All you really got to do is just keep it warm. You don’t really have to go out and till up the ground and do all that to get a garden started.”

Susan has similar advice. “You just have to try it,” she says of gardening. “Mine’s a big garden, but you don’t have to do that. There’s certain things you can do a few plants and have a high yield. Tomatoes is one of them. Flowers is another.”

2.   Be Willing to Learn

Susan also recommends any new gardeners take classes. “University of Tennessee has a classed called ‘The Master Gardener’s Class.’ It was very difficult, but I did take it, and I finished it. It really got me off on the right start.”

She did the same for canning. “If you have a garden, go to the county extension office and take a class on proper ways to can your vegetables. That way you’ve got them all year!”

3.   Trust the Process

The most important thing for a new gardener to remember, in Gerre’s opinion, is that gardening is a skill that is learned. “Sometimes, despite your best efforts, what you have planted may not provide the produce that you want. And that’s okay. That’s just a part of growing and developing those skills, so next year, you say ‘I can do this better.’”

Read more about the joys of gardening from the Curries and Long here!