Great Gardens of 2010

During the course of a year, The CookÕs Garden customer service representatives communicate with many customers about their gardens. To date, these are some reasons why CookÕs Garden customers had great gardens in 2010.

Customer from Ohio commented:

We had a very late winter and still had snow on the ground in April. I knew we were going to have a short spring so I ordered 2 packs of the Tunlcovers and planted my spinach like I normally would. Then I covered the row with the Tunlcover and my spinach came up faster and had little if any leaf disease. The Tunlcover kept the rain off the leaves. Even missing the first 2 weeks of planting, I had spinach nearly on time with a larger harvest.

Customer from Kentucky commented:

While I always had an informal compost pile, I decided in fall 2009 to build a real compost bin from plans I downloaded from the Internet. Construction was very easy, built in less than 3 hours. The only tools I used were: tape measure, saw, drill and hammer. All fall, winter, and spring I made compost from the best things available from around the house and from neighbors. I stopped at a farm, and the farmer said I could Òclean out the horse stall anytime I wantedÓ. By the time the compost was ready in June, I estimate that I had over 500 lbs of great compost. I never used a commercial fertilizer; I only used compost at planting time and as needed. I know in the end I saved money, and knew that my garden was healthy, and I helped the environment.

Customer from New Hampshire commented:

I love beets and always considered them to be only for spring and fall, but this summer, after we harvested the spring crop, we still had seed of the CookÕs Custom Beet Mix so we leveled the soil and planted 3 more rows in early July. Much to our surprise, we had nearly a full crop. They were a little smaller than usual, but they were just fine for using in salads and making my famous relish. We are sure the reason they did well was because they were planted next to some salad geens that had a soaker hose, and we kept the moisture levels up during the heat and drought of summer 2010.

Customer from Maine commented:

I moved to a new house, and it will be 5 years of work before I get the ground ready for gardening. ItÕs basically a quarry, so many rocks. But I had to garden, so I got creative. At my work, we have a lot of pallets, I took 10 home and by using some scrap lumber, cardboard and landscape fabric, I was able to build 10 raised bed gardens. From the pallet I nailed a 2Ó x 4Ó to each corner, 18Ó tall. I then cut cardboard to fit from corner to corner. It was a little wobbly, so I added a 2Ó x 4Ó midway, so in the end, I had 8, 2Ó x 4Ó nailed to the pallet. I covered the inside of the pallet with landscape fabric. Finding enough soil to fill 10 pallets, 15Ó deep was the hardest part, and finally I found a guy who sold topsoil and mushroom soil and bought a full load for $250.00. I had more than enough and filled all the home made Raised Gardens I made and I had the best home grown veggies ever. Next year IÕm building them taller and stronger and will have 4 tomatoes in each box.

Customer from California commented:

I want to thank CookÕs for helping me understand organic gardening. I read an article on your website that was so very straightforward about organic gardening that it really helped me establish my own agenda, the way I wanted to garden. But for others who are interested in organic gardening, not only is it a healthier way to garden, itÕs less expensive. I kept track of my costs, and I grew a better garden for less money in 2010. Thanks CookÕs Garden.

What is Organic Gardening by Denise Cowie